The market has made a nice rebound over the past few months, and one question is on every investor's lips: Can it continue?

To get an answer, it might not be a bad idea to look at what the private equity firms are planning. Remember when The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) decided to cash out with an IPO and it marked the exact top of the private equity boom? Take a look at how that stock has performed since then.

Well, now The Financial Times reports that "Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the world's biggest buy-out group, is preparing up to six companies for initial public offerings worth billions of dollars, including Toys 'R Us, as it sells some of its most valuable groups back to the stock market."

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.'s $25.6 billion buyout of First Data Corp. (NYSE:FDC) won't hold the spot of the second-largest buyout for long.

Tthe top-ranked $45 billon TXU deal, which also includes KKR, will get eclipsed as well.

There's bound to be another mega LBO sooner rather than later. KKR, The Blackstone Group and Texas Pacific Group all have billions of dollars burning holes in their pockets.

What people seem to be forget is that these firms don't want their investments to remain private forever. Odds are good that investors will get another shot at buying shares of First Data in a few years. Maybe then being public will be back in style.

First Data should thank its lucky stars that it's being acquired by KKR.

Growth at the credit-card processing company has been slowing since it separate its Western Union payment processing business and has struggled to find a chief executive to succeed Henry C. "Ric" Duques, the Wall Street Journal said.

Duques who returned in November 2005 after his successor Charles Foote announced his retirement for "personal reasons." At the time, Duques agreed to stay for about two years to help the company find a new successor.

Investors have sat on the sidelines while First Data searched for new leadership. Its stock tanked more than 40 percent over the past year even though most Wall Street analysts rate it either a buy or a strong buy.

Analysts had said First Data would make an atractive buyout candidate for private equity. My colleague Georges Yared makes a persuasive case that the company's prospects are good.

In addition, First Data stands to profit handsomely from the private equity boon. All of those credit card purchases by investment bankers of first-class airplane tickets, suites at fancy hotels and expensive bottles of wine have to be processed somewhere, no?