Carlyle Group buys majority stake in Vermillion Asset Management The Carlyle Group announced Wednesday that it has purchased a 55 percent stake in Vermillion Asset Management, a New York commodities investment firm. The investment gives Carlyle, the Washington-based private equity firm that went public earlier this year, direct exposure to commodity investments such as agriculture and energy. "This is an important addition to Carlyle's ... platform," Mitch Petrick, Carlyle's managing director and head of its global market strategies, said in a statement. Carlyle paid cash, an ownership interest in Carlyle and performance-based payments oover the next five-plus years. The Carlyle Group is a global alternative asset manager with $156 billion of assets under management. Vermillion was founded in 2005 by Drew Gilbert and Chris Nygaard.