Carlyle Group is to become the first $10 Billion Man in the private-equity sector.

The fund has accumulated $7.85 billion for domestic investments in corporate buyouts and has received an additional $2.2 billion for European acquisitions, according to people familiar with the matter, which sums up to about $10 billion. It is soon to disclose its most recent funds, The Washington, D.C.-based group is the largest buyout fund in the US.

Carlyle is expected to be able to borrow about $45 billion against the $10 billion it already has. This amount exceeds the combined market capitalizations of Nike Inc. and Ford Motor Co.

Carlyle’s co-founder and managing director, David Rubenstein, said in an interview with Dennis K.Berman that the size of the newest funds means that a new group of large and well-known companies could be candidates for private-equity buyers. "Nothing is off the table now," Mr. Rubenstein said.

The new initiatives at Carlyle emerge amid tough competition among the world’s largest private-equity players, which purchase or take stakes in both public and closely held companies, change them significantly and then sell the companies or take them public.

Once satisfied with deals valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, the firms now are taking buyouts evaluated at $15 billion.