Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co’s (KKR’s) recent $5bn (£2.7bn) publicly-traded buy-out fund led many private equity firms to consider taking one of their funds public. Notwithstanding indications that the market for similar funds is currently shut, many analysts still believe the KKR transaction is an industry-changing event that has fundamentally altered the capital-raising environment for buy-out funds.
Others are less sanguine about the prospects of public funds, noting that fundamental issues remain to be resolved. Yet the idea of creating public vehicles for private equity is not new. For years, private equity firms have attempted to create permanent pools of capital, enabling them to reinvest all returns at will and eliminate costly and time-consuming capital-raising.
