Damn Kids To Blame for KKR's Bad Deal
Yesterday Dan linked to this WSJ interview with Henry Kravis and George Roberts, but I wanted to point out my two favorite parts. I was amazed that Roberts blamed "younger people at the firm" for one of KKR's 1998 buyout of Regal Cinemas, which went bankrupt three years later: WSJ: What's been your least proud moment at KKR? GR: When you take it as a collection of work as opposed to picking out one deal I'm proud of what we've been able to do. I'm not proud of the results of some investments, whether it's back in the telecom days of "build it and it will come" -- we drank our fair share of Kool-Aid then. Or when we didn't heed our own advice and were persuaded by some of the younger people at the firm to buy Regal Cinemas. Really? Blaming KKR's weak turn-of-the-century days on listening to the "younger people?" Of course, the firm has emphasized over the years the way it learned from those mistakes by bolstering operational involvement in the companies it owns (and not hiring anymore know-it-all MBA grads). The change was so dramatic that that Fortune in 2005 declared the firm was "back." My other favorite part is of course Kravis' answer to the same question,
