One of those investors is John Morris, a managing director with Boston-based fund-of-funds manager HarbourVest.

Carlyle's report also touched briefly on its plans to acquire a majority stake in AlpInvest, a Dutch fund-of-funds manager with more than $43 billion in assets under management.

Even though more money was removed out of stock funds in July as in any month since October 1987, sales of fund shares in July were not as low as an industry trade group had previously estimated.