On July 28, KKR announced its intention to fold its Amsterdam-listed
public LBO fund, KKR Private Equity Investors, into the KKR partnership
by means of a share swap and then move the stock to the NYSE. The
proposal replaced an earlier plan to raise $1.3 billion in a
conventional initial public offering.
However, after a few months of watching investors punish shares of
KKR's listed rivals and financial firms overall, the leveraged buyout
firm run by Henry Kravis and George Roberts is thinking better of
becoming a public company. Private equity firms have
sat out much of
the M&A activity caused by the market turmoil this year, as tight credit
markets and the market's inability to find a bottom have kept them
wary. Things have slowed so much at the high end of the marketplace
that some of the likely deals are hostile takeovers of the beaten-down stocks of Blackstone Group LP or Fortress Fortress Investment Group
LLC by their own management.
In a
blog post
last week on Portfolio, Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman was cited as saying
"this kind of environment is tailor-made for making absolute fortunes
in the private equity business," and Wes Edens, Fortress' CEO is already
joking that if Fortress stock falls much further, to $1, he would
institute a hostile takeover of his own company. -
George White
See KKR press release
See post on PortofolioSee Dealscape post on PE/Banking M&ASee Dealscape post on KKR stock swap
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is putting plans to go public on ice. The private equity heavyweight said Monday morning that its plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange this year via a share swap with its publicly listed leveraged buyout fund would be delayed until next year.
