By Echo Wang

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Private equity firm Carlyle Group posted flat third-quarter profits but beat Wall Street’s estimates as higher fee income was offset by increased compensation expenses.

Distributable earnings, or profit that can be returned to shareholders, in the third quarter was $367 million, or 95 cents per share, nearly flat compared with the same period last year. Wall Street analysts, on average, expected it to post 90 cents per share, according to LSEG data.

Washington, D.C.-based Carlyle reported record fee-related earnings of $278 million, a 36% increase from the previous year. This quarter also saw a fee-related earnings margin of 47%, up from 37% in the same quarter last year.

Fees that Carlyle receives for managing investors’ money and transactions, as well as gains from asset sales, jumped. That was offset by a rise in compensation expenses due to a previously announced pay overhaul that linked pay more closely to investment performance.

Carlyle’s assets under management rose 17% from the prior quarter to $447 billion.

Carlyle’s corporate private equity funds rose 4% during the quarter, buoyed by positive macro trends in the United States and Asia.

Its real estate funds added 2%, infrastructure and natural resources funds gained 2%, and global credit funds appreciated 3%.

Carlyle took U.S. aircraft maintenance services provider StandardAero Inc public last month, in one of the largest initial public offerings (IPO) this year. The IPO valued the company at about $8 billion.

Carlyle said its net accrued performance revenues, representing investment profits that have not been realized, reached $2.8 billion in the quarter, up 28% quarter-over-quarter.

Carlyle spent $3.9 billion on new acquisitions, and retained $85 billion of unspent capital.

(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)