Publicly traded private equity firms are a little amusing because of the whole raison d'être thing. If you love private ownership so much why don't you want it for yourself? Also, if your business is top- and bottom-ticking public markets, why should anyone buy your stock?
I guess those are sort of outdated worries but KKR yesterday added a little extra fun by agreeing to merge itself (that is, KKR & Co. L.P., the publicly traded private equity firm) with its publicly traded debt-investing arm, KKR Financial Holdings LLC (KFN for short), with KKR paying 0.51 common units per KFN share. A KKR thing is being merged into another KKR thing, with KKR on all sides, which naturally raises the question: Who is being hosed?
