The New Financial Capitalists: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the Creation of Corporate Value

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., universally known as KKR, pioneered the leveraged buyout and participated in some of the most celebrated takeover fights of the 1980s. Both authors have worked for KKR as consultants since 1994, and have the company's blessing for this corporate biography. Throughout, the book gives a selective but solid history of KKR deals, showing the full 20-year sweep of the firm rather than concentrating on the atypical battles of the late 1980s. While the authors had some access to financial results and other in-house documents, as well as to personnel, their presentation of the data and interviews with KKR staff often reads like bland restatement of public positions, as in discussions of KKR's much criticized takeover of Safeway, or of Peter Storer's abrupt departure after KKR bought out Storer Communications. (It ""seems"" he ""left unexpectedly for personal reasons."") We are spared information about the fates of associates of KKR who ended up in bankruptcy (such as Executive Life, the first life insurance bankruptcy in the U.S. since the Depression), scandal or jail (""Chainsaw Al"" Dunlop and Michael Milkin, respectively). Opponents of KKR and leveraged buyouts are often mentioned only to be dismissed without refutation. Not specific enough for professionals, dramatic enough for casual readers or balanced enough for people in between, it is hard to imagine an audience for this book. (Oct.)