The New Financial Capitalists: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the Creation of Corporate Value [ハードカバー]

The choice of topics and the quality of exposition of the book is truly unmatched by practically any business books I have ever read. That's the main reason behind the five stars. The analysis throughout, especially the middle chapters, is not yet, but close to academic. But wait, before destroying the online sales of the book by using the word 'academic', I must add that the usual attachment of being boring is absolutely absent. It is so well-written and you'll learn so much from the book that chapter 2 alone (or chp 3 or 4) is worth more than the price.

Finally, to give you more information, this is not a book of pathbreaking insights. But who cares? Every new business book claims itself to be a revolution: the 'everything you previously know about xxx is wrong' kind of slogan. In an age awashed with the chic of being new, Geroge Baker offers the rare gem of simply 'putting things into the right perspective'. You want to know somthing about buyouts? Here you are, crystal clear exposition, abundant historical background, good examples, careful documentation, serious analysis, and, well, maybe a little bit of gossip afterall.

Only Chapter 5 "KKR as an Institutional Form" focused on the firm itself, and even this treatment was not nearly as obsequious as many other financial books (most notably "Goldman Sachs: the Culture of Success" by Endlich). Mr. Baker and Mr. Smith take a very level-headed approach and document the growth of the firm in a straight-forward manner, although they do inject a good deal of `positivity' to their view, i.e. the revolutionary introduction of Monday Morning Meeting's at KKR in the 1990's (this is commonplace at most banks).

I particularly enjoyed the second chapter "Recasting the Role of Debt" which talks about some of the earlier transactions that KKR did in some depth. The description of their LBO of Houdaille is very much worth reading, if only for the fact that traditional `Old Economy' companies are again garnering such interest. Indeed, that is a very noteworthy aspect of the whole book, KKR focused on established companies with real cash flows. The one transaction which involved real growth financing was a near bust. This is very different than all of the financial maneuvering that has gone on over the past two years, and it is interesting to compare the sustainability of the two efforts (the many years of KKR's existence surely triumphs over venture capital's recent 15 minutes of fame). Chapter 4 on "When Risk Becomes Real" talks about some of the failed KKR transactions, EFB Trucking and Eaton Leonard in some detail. The reaction of KKR to these hiccups is very impressive, and while it is told with the same `positivity' of the authors as mentioned above, the authors still do a good job of telling the story in an objective manner. The efforts of the partners to maintaining KKR's reputation in the marketplace is nothing short of heroic, and while there was a clear financial incentive over the short term it is clear that the longer term reputation of the company also played a clear role in motivating their actions.

It really is rare to get a book as good as this with detailed financial information (even if it is more than 10 years old) and a mostly unbiased view of the Company. Where the authors are biased, it is easy to pick up and interpret. This is very much an academic treatment of the firm, with some detail as to what the rest of the market was doing, but not a whole lot. There are just the right number of graphs, which is very nice. I would think anybody working in finance would enjoy this book, although given the depth in which it describes the transactions, it might not be the most leisurely read. This is an outstanding book.