KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strategic partners, hedge funds. , the firm had completed more than 690 private equity investments in portfolio companies with approximately $700 billion of total enterprise value. , assets under management (AUM) and fee paying assets under management (FPAUM) were $504 billion and $412 billion, respectively.
The firm was founded in 1976 by Jerome Kohlberg Jr., and cousins Henry Kravis and George R. Roberts, all of whom had previously worked together at Bear Stearns, where they completed some of the earliest leveraged buyout transactions. Since its founding, KKR has completed a number of transactions, including the 1989 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, which was the largest buyout in history to that point, as well as the 2007 buyout of TXU, which is currently the largest buyout completed to date.
In October 2009, KKR listed shares in the company through KKR & Co., an affiliate that holds 30% of the firm's ownership equity, with the remainder held by the firm's partners. In March 2010, KKR filed to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), with trading commencing four months later, on July 15, 2010.
KKR had offices in 21 cities in 16 countries across five continents. The firm was headquartered in the Solow Building (9 West 57th Street, New York, New York), but in October 2015, announced its intention to occupy the newly-constructed 30 Hudson Yards.
The firm
KKR is led by its executive leadership team, Henry Kravis, George R. Roberts, Joseph Bae, and Scott C. Nuttall. The firm employs approximately 375 investment professionals and 1,250 total employees as of December 31, 2017. KKR is headquartered at 30 Hudson Yards, Manhattan, New York, with offices in Menlo Park and San Francisco (California), Houston (Texas), London, Dublin, Paris, Madrid, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, Riyadh, Seoul, São Paulo, Singapore, and Sydney.
Senior leadership
Chairmen: Henry Kravis and George Roberts (since 1987) Chief Executives: Scott Nuttall and Joseph Bae (since 2021)
List of former chairmen
Jerome Kohlberg Jr. (1976–1987); co-chairmen
List of former CEOs
Henry Kravis, George Roberts, and Jerome Kohlberg Jr. (1976–1987); co-CEOs
Henry Kravis and George Roberts (1987–2021); co-CEOs
Business structure
In a 2016 interview with Bloomberg, founder Henry Kravis described KKR in terms of three broad buckets: private markets, public markets, and capital markets. The firm has traditionally specialized in private equity investments, focusing on specific industry sectors where the firm has created dedicated investment groups, including:
History
Founding and early history
While running the corporate finance department for Bear Stearns in the 1960s and 1970s, Jerome Kohlberg, and later Henry Kravis and George Roberts, completed a series of what they described as "bootstrap" investments. They targeted family-owned businesses, many of which had been founded in the years following World War II, that were facing succession issues. Many of these companies lacked a viable exit for their founders because they were too small to be taken public and the founders were reluctant to sell out to competitors.
In 1964, Lewis Cullman acquired and then sold Orkin Exterminating Company in what some call the first significant leveraged buyout transaction. In the following years the three Bear Stearns bankers completed a series of buyouts including Stern Metals (1965), Incom (a division of Rockwood International, 1971), Cobblers Industries (1971), and Boren Clay (1973), as well as Thompson Wire, Eagle Motors and Barrows through their investment in Stern Metals. Despite a number of highly successful investments, the $27 million investment in Cobblers ended in bankruptcy.
By 1976, tensions had built up between Bear Stearns and Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, which led to the formation of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. The name had been going to be Kohlberg Roberts Kravis, but public relations advisors preferred the sound of KKR. Most notably, Bear Stearns executive Cy Lewis had rejected repeated proposals to form a dedicated investment fund within Bear Stearns.