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Jerome Kohlberg Jr. (July 10, 1925 – July 30, 2015) was an American businessman and investor. He was an early pioneer in the private equity and leveraged buyout industries founding private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and later Kohlberg & Company.

Early life and education

Kohlberg was raised in a Jewish family graduating from New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle, New York. Kohlberg served in the United States Navy during World War II and went on to college and graduate school on the GI Bill. He earned an undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College. He later received an MBA from Harvard Business School and an LLB from Columbia Law School. In 1986, he founded the Philip Evans Scholarship Foundation at Swarthmore.

Career

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

Kohlberg joined Bear Stearns in 1955 where he would go on to manage the corporate finance department. Working for Bear Stearns in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kohlberg, alongside Bear Stearns executives began advising a series of what they described as "bootstrap" investments. Their acquisition of Orkin Exterminating Company in 1964 is considered to have been among the first significant leveraged buyout transactions. In the following years the three Bear Stearns bankers would complete a series of buyouts including Stern Metals (1965), Incom (a division of Rockwood International, 1971), Cobblers Industries (1971), and Boren Clay (1973) as well as Thompson Wire, Eagle Motors and Barrows through their investment in Stern Metals. Although they had a number of highly successful investments, the $27 million investment in Cobblers ended in bankruptcy. Kravis and his associates created a series of limited partnerships to acquire these various corporations, ones they judged were performing well below their sales and profit potential or where there were untapped financial assets that could be monetized. In most cases, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co put up ten percent of the acquisition price from its own funds and borrowed the rest from investors by issuing high-yield bonds.

By 1976 tensions had built up between Bear Stearns and the trio of Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts leading to their departure and the formation of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in that year. Most notably, Bear Stearns executive Cy Lewis had rejected repeated proposals to form a dedicated investment fund within Bear Stearns and Lewis took exception to the amount of time spent on outside activities. Early investors in KKR included the Hillman Family Group of Henry Hillman and the Hillman Company. By 1978, with the revision of the ERISA regulations, the nascent KKR was successful in raising its first institutional fund with approximately $30 million of investor commitments.

Kohlberg & Company

In 1987 Kohlberg resigned from KKR over differences in strategy and Henry Kravis and George Roberts assumed full leadership of the firm. Kohlberg did not favor the large buyouts (which would likely have included the 1989 takeover of RJR Nabisco) or hostile takeovers. Instead, Kohlberg chose to return to his roots, acquiring smaller, middle-market companies and, in 1987, founded a new private equity firm Kohlberg & Company. As of the end of 2007 Kohlberg & Company had raised six private equity funds since its inception, with approximately $3.7 billion of investor commitments. Additionally, Kohlberg also operated a series of debt investment funds under the banner of Katonah Debt Advisors, as well as a publicly traded investment vehicle Kohlberg Capital (NASDAQ:KCAP). Kohlberg retired from Kohlberg & Company in 1994.

Kohlberg died of cancer on July 30, 2015, on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, twenty days after his 90th birthday.

Philanthropy

Kohlberg participated in philanthropy through the Kohlberg Foundation.

See also

• List of billionaires
• History of private equity and venture capital

References

1. The World's Billionaires - #785 Jerome Kohlberg Jr. March 2008
2. The Jewish Phenomenon: Seven Keys to the Enduring Wealth of a People by Steve Silbiger Taylor Trade Publications, May 25, 2000 - 256 pages
3. "Jerome Kohlberg Jr". NNDB. Retrieved September 21, 2014.
4. New York Post: "GI BACKER FITS THE BILL" By RITA DELFINER September 16, 2008
5. "Executive Profile - Jerome Kohlberg Jr". Bloomberg Businessweek. September 22, 2014. Archived from the original on September 22, 2014.
6. SCHWARTZ, NELSON D. "What ‘the Bear’ Meant for the Street." New York Times, March 30, 2008
7. *Burrough, Bryan. Barbarians at the Gate. New York : Harper & Row, 1990, p. 133-136
8. CFR Kravis Bio
9. In 1976 Kravis was forced to serve as interim CEO of a failing direct mail company Advo.
10. The Hillman Company (Answers.com profile)
11. *Burrough, Bryan. Barbarians at the Gate. New York : Harper & Row, 1990, p. 136-140
12. Sarah Bartlett (August 30, 1989). "Kohlberg In Dispute Over Firm". The New York Times.
13. Merced, Michael J. de la (2015-08-01). "Jerome Kohlberg Jr., Pioneer of the Private Equity Industry, Dies at 90". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-10-28.
14. "Jerome Kohlberg Jr., Pioneer of the Private Equity Industry, Dies at 90". The New York Times. August 2015.
15. "Kohlberg Foundation". InfluenceWatch. Retrieved 2024-08-16.

External links

• Kohlberg Foundation
• Forbes.com: Forbes World's Richest People (2004)
• Kohlberg's entry on Forbes 2006 list

v t e Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Founders	Jerome Kohlberg Jr. Henry Kravis George R. Roberts
Investments	Bharti Enterprises Café Coffee Day Capsugel Laureate Education Nielsen Holdings ProSiebenSat.1 Media Sealy Corporation Seven West Media TDC A/S Toys "R" Us Visma
Subsidiaries	Food Arnott's Group Borden Dairy Del Monte Foods Dollar General Flora Food Group US Foods Wild Electronics Alludo BMC Software DZS Leonine Holding Northgate Public Services OverDrive Trainline Yageo Financial CICC Colonial First State (55%) First Data Health & retail Academy Sports + Outdoors America's Best Contacts & Eyeglasses Hospital Corporation of America Oasis Shopping Centre (60%) Pets at Home Industrial manufacture Colonial Pipeline Energy Future Holdings KION Group Legrand Marelli Holdings Marelli Europe Maxeda NXP Semiconductors Oriental Brewery Infastructure John Laing Group Simon & Schuster Aladdin Atheneum Atria Publishing Group Scribner Gallery Publishing Group Pimsleur 37 INK Howard Pocket Threshold Free Press Veen Bosch & Keuning Van Dale Former Aricent Borden El Paso Corp Legg Mason RJR Nabisco
Related	Kohlberg & Company Barbarians at the Gate (film)
Category

• 1925 births
• 2015 deaths
• 20th-century American businesspeople
• 21st-century American businesspeople
• American billionaires
• American chairpersons of corporations
• American chief executives of financial services companies
• American financial company founders
• American financiers
• American investors
• American money managers
• Bear Stearns people
• Businesspeople from New Rochelle, New York
• Columbia Law School alumni
• Harvard Business School alumni
• Kohlberg Kravis Roberts people
• Philanthropists from New York (state)
• Private equity and venture capital investors
• Swarthmore College alumni
• 20th-century American philanthropists
• United States Navy personnel of World War II
• Deaths from cancer in Massachusetts
• 21st-century American Jews
• New Rochelle High School alumni