- KKR wants all its New York staff back in the office from July 12.
- The private-equity firm expects New York staff to be vaccinated before returning to the office.
- KKR’s return to office comes as the firm readies a surfeit of new deals, sources told Insider.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
KKR is the latest heavy dealmaker to mark out a return to its New York office.
The private-equity firm has asked staff to report back to its headquarters in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards on July 12, sources familiar with the matter told Insider.
New York-based staff are also expected to be fully vaccinated from the coronavirus before returning, the sources said.
KKR announced the return in a staff memo signed by Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall, the firm’s co-presidents and co-chief operating officers.
While the New York office has been open in recent months to those willing to return early, July 12 will be a housewarming of sorts for KKR.
Last year’s move to Hudson Yards from its former digs in Manhattan’s Midtown West was interrupted by the pandemic that drove staffers to the confines of their homes.
The private-equity shop is the latest in a string of Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, to summon their staff back to New York headquarters. Others, like Citi and Apollo, are rolling out hybrid-type models, with staff being able to split their hours between home and the office.
KKR was part of a group of firms including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Citi that sought to help with the City’s vaccination effort, Bloomberg reported in January.
The firms, in a call with Larry Schwartz, New York’s vaccination czar, offered logistical help, said they could persuade President Joe Biden’s administration to boost New York’s vaccine allocation, and speed up New Yorkers’ return to offices.
KKR’s return, meanwhile, comes as it staffs up its private credit team and advances a series of large-scale leveraged buyouts.
New York-based Giacomo Picco and Stephanie Yeh were named managing directors in global private credit, KKR said in a press release on Thursday.
Picco will lead a new effort focused on receivables and inventory financing, while Yeh will lead asset-based financing in the US.
Picco was a portfolio manager and head of alternative lending at asset manager Sound Point Capital and Yeh was the head of early stage financing at Credit Suisse. Before that, Yeh worked in structured finance and asset-backed securities at Goldman Sachs.
Private-equity firms, sitting on more than $1 trillion in cash, are teeing up a bevy of acquisitions.
Last month, KKR and fellow private investor Clayton, Dubilier & Rice agreed to buy data cloud company Cloudera for roughly $5.3 billion. KKR also agreed to acquire Atlantic Aviation from Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation for about $4.5 billion in early June.
These deals were announced on the back of Blackstone, the Carlyle Group, and Hellman & Friedman’s $34 billion purchase of medical supplier Medline, the largest private-equity-led acquisition since the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Buyout groups have announced 6,298 deals for the first six months of this year worth approximately $513 billion, according to Refinitiv data. The deluge of acquisitions is the strongest result ever for the first half of a calendar year since 1980, the data showed.
Disclaimer: KKR holds a majority stake in Insider’s parent company, Axel Springer.
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