US buyout firm The Carlyle Group has raised a new $668m (€531m) fund to invest in China and other Asian countries, despite seeing a recent $375m bid for Xugong, a Chinese construction machinery manufacturer, trumped by Sany, a rival construction company.

The fund is Carlyle's third for Asia, and will focus on growth capital opportunities in China, India, Japan and Korea. The current fund is twice as large as the previous two combined, and it has already been used for three investments totalling $72.5m, two in China and one in India.