Update shares, adds analysts comments in paragraph 6 and 11

By Prakhar Srivastava and Isla Binnie

May 7 (Reuters) - Global investment firm Carlyle CG.O reported lower-than-expected profit for the first quarter on Thursday, as asset sales failed to translate to income for shareholders.

Shares of the company fell about 3.9% before the bell.

Distributable earnings, or profits that can be returned to shareholders, came in at $327 million, or 89 cents per share, down from $455.4 million, or $1.14 per share, a year earlier.

Analysts were expecting a profit of 94 cents per share, according to estimates compiled by LSEG.

Even though the firm sold assets, it was not able to pass through the gains, pulling realized net performance revenue down 84% from a year earlier to $20.5 million.

"Not a pretty quarter but strong DPI (Distributed to Paid-In Capital) should help stack the deck for better capital raising, AUM growth and new deployment opportunities going forward, all of which are important cogs in reaching management's healthy 2028 targets," said Evercore ISI analyst Glenn Schorr in a note.

DPI reflects how much money investors have received back relative to their invested capital.

Market volatility was high in the first three months of the year as the U.S. and Israel engaged in war with Iran, sending up the price of oil and stoking inflation.

Managers of alternative assets including private equity and private credit have faced investor worries about lending standards, fears AI will disrupt software holdings and market volatility that made dealmaking more uncertain.

While fee-related earnings fell 3.4%, fund management fees rose 3.6%. Transaction and portfolio advisory fees - which it earns from arranging capital markets deals for portfolio companies and for clients — slumped 30% to $54.1 million.

Its U.S. buyout funds delivered record realizations, or deals to cash out investments, the company said.

Inflows reached $13 billion in the quarter, bringing total assets under management to $475 billion.

TD Cowen analysts said they had "braced for a tepid" quarter partly based on the company's recent guidance, but the results were "nonetheless a bit softer across most KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)".

Assets under management increased 5% at the AlpInvest unit that specializes in second-hand private equity stakes. That was offset by a 3% decrease in private equity assets and a 1% decrease in credit from the prior quarter.

"Carlyle AlpInvest delivered another quarter of exceptional growth, fundraising for both institutional and wealth clients had a strong start to the year, and we had a record quarter for U.S. Buyout realizations," said Chief Executive Harvey M. Schwartz in a statement.

Under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), Carlyle reported a net loss of $132.2 million, weighed down by an unrealized investment loss of $616.7 million.

So far this year, Carlyle's shares have fallen nearly 14.1%, compared with 11.2% growth in the Nasdaq composite index .IXIC.