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

George P. Baker (Author), George David Smith (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521642604 | ISBN-13: 978-0521642606 | Publication Date: October 13, 1998

A widespread misunderstanding concerning leveraged buyouts (LBOs) is the belief that they accomplish little but the ruin of companies and the loss of employment. How else could it be? Until recently, journalists, including much of the business press, have depicted LBO specialists as generally greedy, if not sinister, forces whose activities compound the dislocations of modern American economic and social life. This kind of criticism reached a crescendo in the press and in Congress at the end of the 1980s, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts found itself in the middle of the controversy. Based on interviews with partners of the firm and on unprecedented access to KKR's records, George P. Baker and George David Smith have written a definitive account of how KKR has approached LBOs in a book that will appeal to the specialist and general reader alike. The authors focus on KKR's founding, evolution, and innovations as ways to understand issues in modern American business. In examining KKR as a unique form of enterprise--one that subscribes to a set of alternative perspectives on business and value creation--the book bridges the gap between public perception and academic knowledge of how financial innovation impacts economic life. The firm's approach to leveraged buyouts was an important aspect of the corporate restructuring and governance reforms in the American economy from the mid-1970s through 1990 (the years of what some have called the "leveraged buyout movement"). KKR and other companies fundamentally altered the prevailing perception of the role of debt in the modern American corporation and established an alternative model for organizing and managing corporate enterprises. KKR financed the companies it acquired with high levels of debt, while linking their ownership to management. It then imposed rigorous monitoring by the board of directors over the companies in its portfolio. This combination of factors forced managers to concentrate not on growth but rather on how to achieve value through whatever means was most appropriate to the company's circumstances. The purpose of the leveraged buyout was to realize, or "create," value in companies by reforming their management systems. KKR's approach to restructuring the relationship between owners and managers in a highly leveraged firm rested on a basic principle: Make managers owners by making them invest a significant share of their personal wealth in the enterprises they manage, and they will have stronger incentives to act in the best interests of all shareholders.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The investment firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) is synonymous with the practice of the leveraged buyout (LBO), and KKR has inarguably changed the face of business. Four years ago, it contracted Baker and Smith to document the histories of its investments so that newer members of the firm would have more than oral tradition to guide them. Smith is a founding partner of the Winthrop Group, a company that compiles corporate histories. Baker is an economist and business professor at Harvard Business School. In completing their project, they discovered that much of their research had potential interest to a much wider audience, and they convinced Henry Kravis and George Roberts to agree to this book. The firm saw a benefit in demonstrating that the buyout was an effective financial technique and incentive system. The authors make the case that the way a company is financed affects the way it is managed. They look at the history of the LBO and analyze its effectiveness as a tool for improving performance. David Rouse

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (October 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521642604
• ISBN-13: 978-0521642606
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #241,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Consolidation & Merger

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five stars definitely. You can't find a substitute., May 27, 1999

By 

David K. W. Ma (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New Financial Capitalists: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the Creation of Corporate Value (Hardcover)

If you are looking at what I have written, you must be considering buying this book. So I guess it's good for me to tell you what this book really is and where its strength lies. This book isn't a gossipy account of interesting people; it isn't (only) an account of what KKR did. It's certainly not a moral debate of whether Henry Kravis is a 'Barbarian'. My opinion is that this is a book which seriously attempts to tell us what leverage buyout really is; and the mentioning of KKR, its deals, its organizational strucuture etc, merely (in a sense) serve as illustrative examples. In other words, I think despite the fact that the authors have very meticulous account of things about KKR, they have something else in mind: the 'leverage buyout story' instead of 'the KKR story'. This is the main difference between this book and others belonging to the same topic. So if you are serious about learning something about leverage buyouts, read on.

The choice of topics and the quality of exposition of the book is truly unmatched by practically any business books I have ever read. That's the main reason behind the five stars. The analysis throughout, especially the middle chapters, is not yet, but close to academic. But wait, before destroying the online sales of the book by using the word 'academic', I must add that the usual attachment of being boring is absolutely absent. It is so well-written and you'll learn so much from the book that chapter 2 alone (or chp 3 or 4) is worth more than the price.

Finally, to give you more information, this is not a book of pathbreaking insights. But who cares? Every new business book claims itself to be a revolution: the 'everything you previously know about xxx is wrong' kind of slogan. In an age awashed with the chic of being new, Geroge Baker offers the rare gem of simply 'putting things into the right perspective'. You want to know somthing about buyouts? Here you are, crystal clear exposition, abundant historical background, good examples, careful documentation, serious analysis, and, well, maybe a little bit of gossip afterall.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed Treatment of early KKR-led LBO Financing, May 25, 2001

By 

Fred "Technology is your friend." (CHAPEL HILL, NC, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New Financial Capitalists: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the Creation of Corporate Value (Hardcover)

This is an outstanding academic treatment of the investments made by KKR, all of which were some kind of leveraged buy-out. The authors focus their attention on the transactions themselves, not the way they were viewed by society or on the people that put them together - in this regard the book is a rare gem. It treats the period up to 1990 in some depth, with some very interesting case studies that show pretty good financial detail with outstanding qualitative descriptions of the transactions that were put together. As you walk through the various case studies, you are able to sit alongside with the KKR team and watch as the LBO goes from an unusual financial instrument to a mainstream product that is widely accepted in the marketplace. While growing acceptance of financial products is an established facet of Wall Street, to follow this evolution through the work of a single firm really is quite interesting. The manner in which the complexity, leverage and size of the transactions grow is laid out in plain English, making this a fascinating read.

Only Chapter 5 "KKR as an Institutional Form" focused on the firm itself, and even this treatment was not nearly as obsequious as many other financial books (most notably "Goldman Sachs: the Culture of Success" by Endlich). Mr. Baker and Mr. Smith take a very level-headed approach and document the growth of the firm in a straight-forward manner, although they do inject a good deal of `positivity' to their view, i.e. the revolutionary introduction of Monday Morning Meeting's at KKR in the 1990's (this is commonplace at most banks).

I particularly enjoyed the second chapter "Recasting the Role of Debt" which talks about some of the earlier transactions that KKR did in some depth. The description of their LBO of Houdaille is very much worth reading, if only for the fact that traditional `Old Economy' companies are again garnering such interest. Indeed, that is a very noteworthy aspect of the whole book, KKR focused on established companies with real cash flows. The one transaction which involved real growth financing was a near bust. This is very different than all of the financial maneuvering that has gone on over the past two years, and it is interesting to compare the sustainability of the two efforts (the many years of KKR's existence surely triumphs over venture capital's recent 15 minutes of fame). Chapter 4 on "When Risk Becomes Real" talks about some of the failed KKR transactions, EFB Trucking and Eaton Leonard in some detail. The reaction of KKR to these hiccups is very impressive, and while it is told with the same `positivity' of the authors as mentioned above, the authors still do a good job of telling the story in an objective manner. The efforts of the partners to maintaining KKR's reputation in the marketplace is nothing short of heroic, and while there was a clear financial incentive over the short term it is clear that the longer term reputation of the company also played a clear role in motivating their actions.

It really is rare to get a book as good as this with detailed financial information (even if it is more than 10 years old) and a mostly unbiased view of the Company. Where the authors are biased, it is easy to pick up and interpret. This is very much an academic treatment of the firm, with some detail as to what the rest of the market was doing, but not a whole lot. There are just the right number of graphs, which is very nice. I would think anybody working in finance would enjoy this book, although given the depth in which it describes the transactions, it might not be the most leisurely read. This is an outstanding book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read!, May 31, 2001

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The New Financial Capitalists: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the Creation of Corporate Value (Hardcover)

This revealing book covers a highly charged and controversial period of American investment history. George P. Baker and George David Smith study the emergence of the investment house Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts (KKR), and follow it during the decade KKR ruled the world of leveraged buyouts. The authors begin with the early days when the partners worked together at Bear Stearns. They track the men as they build their own firm and create their own success. In clear, straightforward language, the book presents KKR's intentions and the economics of leveraged buyouts (LBOs). It discusses KKR's role in structuring and managing the deals. We [...] recommend this book as a must read for anyone interested in LBOs or the history of KKR. Executives at all levels will find the KKR saga interesting and useful.