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KKR to go public on NYSE via fund takeover

KKR & Co., the leveraged-buyout firm run by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, plans to convert to a public company by the end of the year in a transaction that may give it a market value of as much as $15 billion.KKR will abort the initial public offering it announced a year ago, before the buyout market collapsed, and instead go public through a takeover of the Amsterdam-listed buyout fund it created in May 2006. KKR Private Equity Investors LP has left investors who bought shares in its May 2006 IPO with losses of almost 60 percent, the firm’s only fund to post a loss in KKR’s 32-year history. When the deal is completed by December, the shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange, KKR said.

Kravis and Roberts won’t raise new capital in the deal, a goal of the original IPO, though they will get the buyout fund’s $4.56 billion of assets and can issue more new stock to make acquisitions and attract and retain employees. The cousins, who started the firm in 1976, consider being public key to efforts to expand KKR’s fixed-income and capital-markets units and reduce their reliance on LBOs.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abkIU4.b0aYo&refer=home