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Sunday, November 8, 
2:21 am

KKR IPO story emblematic of moribund PE market

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There's no clearer symptom of how utterly lifeless the private equity market has become than Thursday's prominently placed piece in The Wall Street Journal's C section that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. hasn't given up on the notion of going public.

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It's been one year since the leveraged buyout giant announced plans for an IPO.

But that was before the credit markets collapsed, before big-cap leverage buyout activity of the kind KKR specializes in evaporated and before KKR's revenues and cash flows dwindled to a trickle. (This last point is a guess, since KKR hasn't updated its financials since last November, when it issued its last amended IPO prospectus. But unless KKR has secretly scored a killing in pork bellies or energy futures, it's safe to surmise that recent results have been anemic.)

Nonetheless, the mere fact that KKR is "still keen on becoming a public company," as the Journal reports, qualifies as news of a sort.

Of course, actually moving forward with an IPO is another matter entirely. The shares of LBO players who beat KKR to the public market, the Blackstone Group LP and Fortress Investment Group LLC, continue to perform dismally. Given current market conditions, it's doubtful their shares will perk up in the near future.

A fact that argues strongly against KKR going public any time soon. - David Carey





Comments

From: Don,

Just for heck of it, let's see if this comes true.

Trouble for Kravis on July 5th, the 9th, and the 10th.

Serious stuff that really constricts one's options and sobers up even the most incorrigible optimists.


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