SHANGHAI (Forbes.com) -- Carlyle Group, looking to add to the $2.5 billion it has already invested in China, said Wednesday it would team up with one of the country's largest non-government-controlled businesses to set up an investment fund and work together to find opportunities in China and abroad.

Carlyle and Shanghai-based Fosun Group will initially invest $50 million each in a fund that will target companies poised to benefit from China's brisk economic growth.
That will include Chinese firms with operations in China, the overseas operations of China-based businesses and international companies that have good development prospects in China itself, said Fosun CEO Liang Xinjun.
An example of the latter would include well-known brands that face slow growth abroad but good prospects in China, he said.
Carlyle just last month signed a memorandum to set up a domestic currency fund in Beijing.
It is among a slew of foreign fund management companies looking to take advantage of the country's fast economic growth.
The fund with Fosun will also be a local currency fund.
“China represents the most attractive place in the world to invest today,” said David M. Rubenstein, Carlyle's co-founder and managing director.
The U.S. private equity company has already invested billions of dollars in China and “we hope to invest many billions of dollars more over the coming years,” he said. “This joint venture will help facilitate that.”
The global nature of Carlyle's hook-up with Fosun is the first of its kind between a Chinese non-government investment company and a global counterpart of company's size, Rubenstein said.
The agreement with Fosun also shows that a “global private equity investment firm like Carlyle regards China as such an important place that we don't think we can operate here as effectively as we'd like without a strong local partner, and we've selected Fosun as our principle private sector partner,” he said.