By Isla Binnie
NEW YORK, May 27 (Reuters) – Investment firm Carlyle sees limitless opportunity to invest in the defense sector as governments globally hike military spending, Chief Executive Harvey Schwartz said on Wednesday.
The total addressable market for a new dedicated unit that the firm set up to invest in that sector “is unlimited, because everywhere you go everybody’s increasing their defense budgets by 1%, 2%, 5%,” Schwartz said.
“I think this is a global phenomenon,” Schwartz told the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York.
The unit will invest in aerospace and industrials businesses as well as defense, Carlyle said in a statement.
Schwartz has touted Carlyle’s roots in Washington, D.C., as an advantage compared to its New York-based private capital peers as he worked on steering the firm out of an internal struggle and through an industry-wide slowdown.
Global military expenditure reached $2.89 trillion in 2025, taking spending as a share of global gross domestic product to its highest since 2009, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
There are so many potential deals to be done in the sector that “we’re saying ‘no’ to a lot of transactions of the smaller ticket size,” Schwartz said.
The new unit could allow it to do deals worth $200 million or $300 million, Schwartz added.
(Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Will Dunham)
