The New York-based company replicated the script of 2020 by announcing a $8.5 billion deal in the last 10 days, and in the last 10 days, it bought a company as diverse as the German mid-sized technology company, with British health care real estate developers buying a family from Sweden’s consumer health experts and post-trade service providers that can slow down even the activities of a few.
“When most people are nervous about deploying capital and competition for assets decreases, valuations usually drop, like you’ve seen in the stock market recently,” said Joseph Bae of KKR, co-CEO of South Korea. He would have been a concert pianist if he hadn’t joined the world of financial services.
“As long-term investors, our job is not to try to time the market but try to make sure we can transaction and invest in really, high-quality businesses that we have conviction behind. And when markets trade off, competition declines, it creates these opportunities for us to lean in and deploy capital. Like what you’ve seen during Covid, during this period of volatile again, you are going to see KKR be leaning into the opportunity and making sure we capture and monetize the volatile in the market.”
India believes that BAE will still be “relatively insulated” from Tarriff’s turmoil with 70% of the Indian economy being driven by domestic consumption. Since opening an Indian office in 40 transactions in 2006, KKR has deployed over $13 billion in stocks (equity), with $2 billion in hacked in the past 12 months alone, making it one of the most active markets in the world. Together with Japan – defeating Bain Capital in Fujisoft’s $4.4 billion bid battle – India remains two of the region’s most important markets.
“Foreign capital today is focusing more on India than before. Not only the capital market is deepening, but there are more private equity and strategic buyers focusing on India.” Bae (52) said during his exclusive interaction with ET.A former Goldman Sachs banker who joined KKR at age 24 and rose within the ranks from being an analyst in 1996 to leading the private equity firm’s push into Hong Kong and the rest of Asia in 2005 to take on more established players TPG, Warburg Pincus or Carlyle, to becoming Its co-CEO alongside Scott Nuttall after cofounders Henry Kravis and George Roberts resigned in October 2021, and Bae saw the company go from a pioneer in leveraged acquisitions to full bragging, owning full investments in insurance, credit, credit, infrastructure and real estate, and built vertically with the core private equity in pursuit of its $1 trillion dominance in 2030, which is $63.8 billion. Bei said. “The driving growth mentality around infrastructure investment has been a huge headwind for growth in the country. We are not only private equity. We are also growth stock investors in the country and the largest, if not one of the largest infrastructure investors in the country today, as far as foreign investors are concerned.”
So far, the theme of investment in India has largely been dependent on the support of local entrepreneurs using local demand and consumption. The next phase will be more deeply involved in these topics in areas such as healthcare services and pharmaceuticals, consumption, digitalization and its interaction with manufacturing and financial services, said Gaurav Trehan, co-head of Asia Pacific at KKR.
“Even in technical services, this story has shifted from being a very basic provider to a higher-end and niche service like product engineering and revenue cycle management. The second part of the export theme is centered around manufacturing. Our strength to be a capital solution provider throughout the balance sheet and spectrum means that as the size of the business requires capital, debt, convertible debt, we can truly deliver a comprehensive solution.”
Bae said that while global CEOs and markets can handle recent volatility, as the world’s long-standing era of “benevolent globalization” is about to end and give way to more “cooperation and economic activity within the region,” the key is to revolve around long-term stability and clarity around government policies.
“Without clear visibility, you’ll see a shelves or pauses in the things that create basic GDP growth. In the U.S., private sector investment will slow until visibility. Even in his first semester, trade and reciprocity tariffs are the interface and center of his vision for the best of America.”
