Carlyle to invest $98m in Central Pacific Financial

The Carlyle Group has entered into an agreement to invest $98 million in US-listed Central Pacific Financial, a Hawaii-based financial institution.

The capital injection from Carlyle is matched by an investment of equal size from New York-based Anchorage Capital Group. Central Pacific plans to raise a total of $325 million, including the $196 million from the two firms.
 
Carlyle and Anchorage will each own 24.9 percent of the common stock of the company, purchased at a price of $0.75 per share. The investment and related transactions are subject to the remaining $130 million of capital being raised, as well as regulatory approval and other conditions.

Central Pacific also has plans to conduct a $20 million rights offering after the capital raise, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011.

The investment from Carlyle is the latest in a recent flurry of deals for the firm, which last week agreed to two multi-billion dollar take-private’s: The $3.9 billion acquisition of CommScope, a maker of infrastructure for communications networks, and a $2.6 billion deal for mobile communications network provider Syniverse Technologies.

Carlyle also recently purchased French hotel chain B&B Hotel Group from Eurazeo for roughly $676 million.
Carlyle’s last deal in Hawaii came in 2005, when the firm purchased Telecom Communications for $1.6 billion. That investment went sour when the company stumbled into bankruptcy under a heavy debt load in late 2008.