NEW YORK, May 1 (Reuters) - Carlyle Group ( CG ) said on

Wednesday its first quarter distributable earnings jumped nearly

59% year-on-year driven by strong asset sales across its private

equity portfolio.

Distributable earnings, which represents the cash used to

pay dividends to shareholders, rose to $431.3 million compared

with $271.6 million a year earlier. That translated to after-tax

distributable earnings of $1.01 per share, which was ahead of

the average Wall Street analyst estimate of 94 cents, according

to LSEG data.

Washington, D.C.-based Carlyle said its net profit from

asset sales more than doubled to nearly $400 million from $165.1

million a year earlier. A portion of those proceeds came from

Carlyle's cashing out its interests in McDonald's local

Chinese business and British oil firm Neptune Energy.

Carlyle's corporate private equity funds were flat during

the quarter, global credit funds appreciated 2%, real estate

funds added 1%, and secondaries funds gained 5%. Last month,

Blackstone reported that its corporate private equity

funds appreciated by 3.4%, liquid credit funds gained 2.5%, and

opportunistic real estate funds were flat.

Carlyle's net income under generally accepted accounting

principles fell 35% to $65.6 million, down from $100.7 million a

year earlier driven by investment losses.

Carlyle raised $5.3 billion of new capital, invested $5

billion to acquire new assets, retained $76 billion of unspent

capital, and declared a quarterly dividend of 35 cents. Total

assets under management stood at $425 billion.