Today's New York Times [registration required] discusses the pending initial public offering (IPO) of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR). In so doing, it glosses over the role of its founding partner, Jerome Kohlberg. But just because The Times ignores him, that's no reason for you to.

That's because I interviewed him three years ago for the Swarthmore College Bulletin. So without further ado, here's my interview with him:

"Kohlberg was co-founder of the leveraged buyout specialist KKR and is now special limited principal of Kohlberg & Co. His business success began with the simple yet powerful notion that it was better to risk one's own capital than to be an intermediary. "One of my friend's fathers was a merchant banker,' he recalls. "He didn't act for commissions. He stood and fell on his own investments, which he put beside those of other clients. I realized that being a principal was what I wanted.""

Continue reading KKR's forgotten partner

KKR's forgotten partner originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 04 Jul 2007 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Carlyle prepping fund for an IPO? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 13 May 2007 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I've quoted comScore quite a bit over the years. The company is the leader in in-depth industry research - especially on the digital side.

Well, now the company has filed to go public.

While comScore has traditional researchers, there is also a panel of more than two million Internet users that help provide usage patterns. Yes, that's how the firm knows such things as how many users are watching online videos or not clicking on a banner ad.

It's a very lucrative business. Last year, comScore chalked up $66.3 million in revenue and a hefty $10.9 million in cash flow from operations. Customers are usually large companies like Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO).

Fees are charged on a subscription basis. This allows for a recurring revenue stream -- which investors love.

comScore's underwriters include Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) and Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB). The proposed ticker symbol is SCOR.

You can check out the IPO filing at the SEC website.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

comScore's next report...an IPO originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It must be something in the water, but Blackstone Group LP's workers produce nine times the profit as their counterparts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS), according to an analysis by Bloomberg News.

Blackstone's 770 workers produced an average of $2.95 million in net income last year compared with $360,000 at Goldman Sachs which has about 31,000 workers, Bloomberg says. This raises some interesting questions about how the market will value the New York-based hedge fund company.

If investors value it like Goldman, it will trade at about 10 times earnings with a market capitalization of $23 billion while a Fortress Investment Group LLC (NYSE:FIG) multiple would value Blackstone at about $29 billion, Bloomberg News says. Goldman's market capitalization is $87 billion and Fortess Investment Group's is $37 billion.

Blackstone, though, will trade at a premium to both companies -- at least at first -- because its performance has been amazing over the past few years.

Continue reading Blackstone's workers generate nine times as much profit as Goldman's

Blackstone's workers generate nine times as much profit as Goldman's originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.