KKR Files to Go Public on the NYSE

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has filed to sell $2.2 billion worth of stock in an initial public offering on the NYSE. The sale values the private equity firm at approximately $7.3 billion. Including debt, its value is closer to $9.3 billion. The firm reported an economic net income of $1.48 billion for 2009 with its private markets unit accounting for $1.1 billion. The incredible growth of KKR (and, by proxy, the growth of the PE industry) over the past decade is shown by the increase from $15 billion AUM for KKR in 2004 to $52.2 billion in 2009. In total, the firm's traditional buyout funds have generated a 25.8% gross IRR with a multiple of 1.9x since 1976.

There are over 25 U.S. publicly traded companies involved in private equity investing, according to the PitchBook Platform. The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) is the only major private equity firm currently listed, although The Carlyle Group, Bain Capital and Apollo Investment Management are all candidates to go public sometime soon. Other PE investors publicly listed include investment banks like Goldman Sachs (GS Capital Partners) and Citigroup (Metalmark Capital). The largest group of publicly traded PE investors consists of Business Development Companies (BDC) like American Capital (NASDAQ: ACAS), Allied Capital (NYSE: ALD) and Prospect Capital (NASDAQ: PSEC).