KKR going to an IPO

This week KKR confirmed they have filed with the New York Stock Exchange that they will be going to IPO.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.'s Henry Kravis made personal visits to the securities sales forces of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc this week, drumming up interest in their upcomming IPO.

So who is KKR? KKR are the Private Equity company which engineered some of the largest Leveraged Buy Outs (LBO's) in history, throughout a spree of buys in 2006 and early 2007.

So what makes this interesting?

1) The IPO market currently is DEAD... in both the US and Australia. Unless you are in the mining or mining services industry... it is not the most ideal time. In 2007 there were 350 IPO's in Australia and this year... there has been 52.

2) They rely on debt funding to orchestrate this massive buy outs. Given that the credit markets are taking beat after beating as each quarter rolls buy. This does not makes sense

So now the question... Does legendary deal maker Henry Kravis know something that everyone else has missed? Is he timing his 4th quarter float to early... or will he be on the money.

Blackstone, the last Private Equity company to list is sitting at about 60% of their original float price.

So Henry... cheers to you for either what is going to be seen as genius or insanity! Either way... markets throughout the world will be watching!