KPS Capital Partners

Last updated
KPS Capital Partners
Company type Private
Industry Private Equity
Founded1991 [1]
Headquarters New York, New York
Key people
Michael Psaros, David Shapiro, Raquel Palmer, Jay Bernstein
Products Leveraged buyout
Total assets $12 billion
Website www.kpsfund.com

KPS Capital Partners is an American investment company that manages KPS Special Situation Funds, a family of investment funds. KPS specifically invests out of two funds raised in October 2019: KPS Special Situations Fund V ($6.12 billion) and KPS Mid-Cap Fund ($1.02 billion). [2]

Contents

History

The company was founded in 1991 by Eugene Keilin, Michael Psaros, and David Shapiro, hence the KPS name. [3] KPS raised its first institutional fund in 1998. [4] [5] On May 6, 2019, KPS Capital Partners signed an agreement with Brunswick Corporation to purchase its fitness business valued at $490 million in an all cash transaction. [6] In 2020, KPS completed five platform investments, including IKG (January 2020), [7] Lufkin Industries (June 2020), [8] Briggs & Stratton (September 2020), [9] AM General (October 2020) [10] and Hussey Copper (December 2020). [11] In 2021, KPS announced the acquisition of the aluminum rolling business from Norsk Hydro [12] and the EMEA food and consumer packaging business from Crown Holdings. [13]

Operations

The firm is not a hedge fund, but focuses on making controlling equity investments in manufacturing and industrial companies. Many of its investments "involve creating new companies" that buy underperforming assets, such as "companies operating in bankruptcy or in default of obligations to creditors", or otherwise with a history of "recurring operating losses". [14] KPS is a global firm headquartered in New York City with offices in Frankfurt and Amsterdam that invests in both North American and European-headquartered companies. The KPS Funds' portfolio companies currently have assets under management worth $12 billion, operate 158 manufacturing facilities in 22 countries, and have approximately 32,000 employees. [15] [16] In 2019, KPS Fund V, the firm's active flagship fund, had $15 billion of investor demand for a $6 billion fund." [2] [17]

The Financial Times noted that, while private equity firms often have a bad reputation for stripping assets and slashing jobs when buying distressed companies, KPS has established a reputation for constructive relationships with the workforce and their unions. [18] In 2009, Psaros estimated that he had saved about 20,000 jobs. [18] Unions also have appreciated that KPS uses little or no debt in its deals and have called in KPS to save companies. [18] KPS has worked with large manufacturing and industrial unions, having a "history of consulting workers" as noted by AFL-CIO. In Europe, KPS has established relationship and Framework Agreements with the German unions IG Metall and IG BCE. [19] [20]

Business units

The following (incomplete) list includes major companies that are or had been controlled by KPS: [21]

Notes

  1. Bloomberg Business Company Snapshot
  2. 1 2 Kreutzer, Laura. "KPS Capital Partners Raises $7 Billion for Newest Funds". The Wall Street Journal.
  3. Boselovic, Len (February 16, 2014). "Heard Off the Street: Psaros based his career on a bold experiment". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved February 12, 2015.
  4. Cardoletti, Giada (August 2005). "Working with Unions is Labor of Love for KPS" (PDF). DowJones Private Equity Analyst. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
  5. Staff, T. N. H. "Psaros and Shapiro's KPS Simultaneously Closes $6B Special Situations Fund V and $1B Mid-Cap Fund". The National Herald. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  6. "Brunswick Announces Sale of Fitness Business". Brunswick Corporation. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  7. "KPS Capital Partners Acquires IKG Industries | Mergr". mergr.com. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  8. Garcia, Luis (2020-05-01). "KPS Capital Bets on Energy in Buying Lufkin Unit of Baker Hughes". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  9. "KPS Capital Goes on Offense Buying Humvee and Lawn Mower Makers". Bloomberg.com. 2020-08-14. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  10. Judson, Joe Gould, Jen (2020-07-22). "Private equity firm buys Humvee-maker AM General". Defense News. Retrieved 2021-04-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. "KPS Capital Partners Acquires Hussey Copper - Metal Center News". www.metalcenternews.com. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  12. "Norsk Hydro sells its aluminum rolling business". Recycling Today. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  13. "KPS Capital Partners to acquire aerosol, food packaging business from Crown". World Aerosols. Retrieved 2021-04-18.
  14. McNulty, John. "KPS Races to $7 Billion, 30% Carry". Private Equity Professional.
  15. McNulty, John (2019-10-21). "KPS Races to $7 Billion, 30% Carry". Private Equity Professional. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  16. 1 2 "Hussey Copper bought by private equity firm looking for growth". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  17. Kreutzer, Laura. "Kreutzer's Take: Four Takeaways From KPS's Latest Fundraising". The Wall Street Journal.
  18. 1 2 3 Arnold, Martin (March 26, 2009). "The friendly barbarian". Financial Times. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  19. Boyce, Christopher. "Private equity firm KPS works with unions for a smooth transition" (PDF). St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
  20. "Hydro to Sell Rolling Business to KPS Capital Partners". Steel Guru. Steel Guru Business News.
  21. "Private Equity Firm, Manufacturing". KPS Capital Partners. 2014.
  22. "Princess Yachts". KPS Capital Partners. Retrieved 2023-11-19.
  23. "TaylorMade Golf sold for $425 million to KPS Capital Partners LP". Golf. May 10, 2017.
  24. Gould, Joe (August 13, 2020). "AM General CEO on acquisition by a private equity firm". Defensenews. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  25. "Briggs & Stratton enters into $550M sales agreement with KPS Capital, files Chapter 11 reorganization". The Business Journals. July 20, 2020.
  26. "New ownership, new name – aluminium rolling and recycling by Speira". Aluminium International Today. Retrieved 2021-09-09.
  27. "Handelsblatt".

Related Research Articles

The Carlyle Group Inc. is an American multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $426 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and private credit. It is one of the largest mega-funds in the world. In 2015, Carlyle was the world's largest private equity firm by capital raised over the previous five years, according to the PEI 300 index. In the 2024 ranking however, it had slipped to sixth place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackstone Inc.</span> American alternative investment company

Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate across the globe. Blackstone is also active in credit, infrastructure, hedge funds, secondaries, growth equity, and insurance solutions. As of May 2024, Blackstone has more than US$1 trillion in total assets under management, making it the largest alternative investment firm globally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TPG Inc.</span> American investment company

TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American private equity firm based in Fort Worth, Texas. TPG manages investment funds in growth capital, venture capital, public equity, and debt investments. The firm invests in a range of industries including consumer/retail, media and telecommunications, industrials, technology, travel, leisure, and health care. TPG became a public company in January 2022, trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “TPG”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Providence Equity</span> American global private equity investment firm

Providence Equity Partners L.L.C. is a specialist private equity investment firm focused on media, communications, education, and technology investments across North America and Europe. The firm specializes in growth-oriented private equity investments and has invested in more than 170 companies globally since its inception in 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apax Partners</span> British private equity firm

Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of March 2024, the firm had raised and advised funds of approximately US$77 billion. Apax Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms operating on an international basis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CVC Capital Partners</span> British private equity and investment advisory firm

CVC Capital Partners plc is a Luxembourg-based private equity and investment advisory firm with approximately €186 billion of assets under management and approximately €157 billion in secured commitments since inception across American, European, and Asian private equity, secondaries, credit funds and infrastructure. As of 31 December 2021, the funds managed or advised by CVC are invested in more than 100 companies worldwide, employing over 450,000 people in numerous countries. CVC was founded in 1981 and, as of 31 March 2022, has over 850 employees working across its network of 25 offices throughout EMEA, Asia and the Americas.

In finance, the private-equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private-equity and other alternative investment funds. Given the absence of established trading markets for these interests, the transfer of interests in private-equity funds as well as hedge funds can be more complex and labor-intensive.

Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. is an American private equity firm headquartered in Boston. The firm focuses on investing in middle market growth companies across various sectors, including financial technology, services, healthcare, technology, and business solutions.

Graphite Capital is a private equity firm focused on mid-market leveraged buyout investments, primarily in the UK. The group manages around £1.2 billion for institutional investors, with the most recent fund raising over £500 million in 2018. Since 1991, the firm has backed almost 100 management teams through various investments.

Lexington Partners is one of the largest manager of secondary acquisition and co-Investment funds in the world, founded in 1994. Lexington manages approximately $55 billion of which an unprecedented $14 billion was committed to the firm's ninth fund, the largest dedicated secondaries pool of capital ever raised at the time.

AlpInvest Partners is a global private equity asset manager with over $85 billion of committed capital since inception as of December 31, 2022. The firm invests on behalf of more than 450 institutional investors from North America, Asia, Europe, South America and Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BC Partners</span> Private equity firm

BC Partners is a British international investment firm with over $40 billion of assets under management across private equity, credit and real estate in Europe and North America. Its global headquarters are in London. The firm invests across all industries. BC Partners was founded in 1986 and has offices in New York, Paris and Hamburg. Since inception, BC Partners has completed 113 private equity investments in companies with a total enterprise value of €145 billion.

MidOcean Partners is a New York–based alternative asset management firm that specializes in mid-sized private equity and alternative leveraged investments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Partners Group</span> Swiss-based global private equity firm

Partners Group Holding AG is a Swiss-based global private equity firm with US$149 billion in assets under management in private equity, private infrastructure, private real estate and private debt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Jordan Company</span> American private equity firm

TJC, formerly known as The Jordan Company is a private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout and management buyout investments in smaller middle-market companies across a range of industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metalmark Capital</span> American private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout

Metalmark Capital, formerly Morgan Stanley Capital Partners is a private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout investments in middle-market companies across a range of industries. Metalmark was acquired by Citigroup Alternative Investments in December 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riverstone Holdings</span> American multinational private equity firm

Riverstone Holdings is a multinational private equity firm based in New York City focused on leveraged buyout, growth capital, and credit investments in the energy industry and electrical power industry sectors. The firm focuses on oil and gas exploration, midstream pipelines, electricity generation, energy and power services, energy and power technology, and renewable energy infrastructure and technology. Riverstone has raised approximately $41 billion since the firm's inception in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SS&C Technologies</span> American financial technology company

SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational holding company headquartered in Windsor, Connecticut, that sells software and software as a service to the financial services industry. The company has offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Searchlight Capital</span> British private equity firm

Searchlight Capital Partners is a private equity firm based in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, with $15 billion in assets under management.

Blue Owl Capital Inc. is an American alternative investment asset management company. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol: "OWL".