By Isla Binnie and Pritam Biswas

Feb 6 (Reuters) - Asset manager Carlyle Group CG.O posted a rise in fourth-quarter profit on Friday, helped by income from deals at its private-equity arm and solid gains across its credit and secondaries businesses.

Distributable earnings, or profit that can be returned to shareholders, rose 13.7% over the year earlier to $436 million, or $1.01 per share.

Cashing in on assets at its private-equity unit and global credit business pushed the company's net realized performance revenue up to $123 million in the quarter. Carlyle also pointed to so-called exit activity at its U.S. buyout fund, two European technology funds and an opportunistic credit fund.

Mergers and acquisitions rebounded late last year after a long downturn as lower interest rates made it cheaper to finance deals and worries over the effects of policies introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump began to ease.

Fee-related earnings increased 1% to $290 million.

Carlyle sold its stake in U.S. chip startup Ampere and British fund network Calastone in 2025. It took medical supplies company Medline MDLN.O public in December.

The company raised $53.7 billion in fresh capital in fiscal 2025, bringing its total assets under management to $477 billion, 8% higher than a year ago.

Inflows were mainly focused into its secondaries business, Carlyle AlpInvest, which trades in a growing market for second-hand private-equity stakes, and its credit funds.

Carlyle's shares have lost around 6% so far in 2026 amid a global selloff, but are still up more than 5% over the past year.

(Reporting by Isla Binnie in New York and Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

((Pritam.Biswas@thomsonreuters.com))