Carlyle Group is seeing double. Looking to build on the success of its six-year-old U.S. leveraged finance business, the Washington-based private equity firm last month tapped Mike Ramsay to launch a parallel group in London and lead the way into the European markets.

The 37-year-old Scot wants to ultimately match the scale of Carlyle's $3 billion U.S. leveraged finance portfolio, which encompasses several collateralized debt obligations that each hold an assortment of loans, high-yield bonds and other debt instruments. Demand for these complex structures has been growing quickly in Europe.

Ramsay already has considerable insight into the European debt market: He spent the past five years building a E2 billion ($2.46 billion) leveraged finance portfolio for Prudential M&G in London. He sees a huge competitive advantage in working with the politically connected (and controversial) Carlyle, which has $18.4 billion in assets under management and extensive expertise in a range of industries, from aerospace to health care. "We'll have great insight into certain industry sectors," Ramsay says, "and that will be a key differentiator in the development of this new business."

He is still raising money for the new fund, which will emphasize mezzanine, senior secured and high-yield bond debt. His inaugural investor is Bank of Scotland Corporate, a division of HBOS Group, which will give Ramsay some institutional might -- and better access to a broad selection of assets.