Improving markets lifted the fortunes of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in the fourth quarter, as the investment firm reported a 22 percent jump in profit.
K.K.R. said on Thursday that it earned $347.7 million for the quarter, as all of its businesses showed strong gains. For the year, the firm earned $2.1 billion.
The fourth-quarter profit, reported as economic net income and which includes unrealized gains from investments, comes out to 48 cents a share. That is more than double the 20 cents a share average of analyst estimates compiled by Capital IQ.
Private equity shops have benefited from an improvement in the markets, which have bostered the value of their own holdings. Last week, the Blackstone Group reported a 43 percent leap in fourth-quarter earnings.
K.K.R. said that the value of its investments rose 4 percent for the quarter and 20 percent for the year.
The strongest performers among the firm’s investments included Alliance Boots, a British pharmacy chain; HCA, the giant hospital operator that went public last year; and the Nielsen Company, the media measurement company.
They also make selling portfolio companies a more attractive prospect, letting these firms harvest tangible returns from their investments. That was reflected in K.K.R.’s results: The firm reported a nearly fourfold increase in d! istributable earnings for the quarter, to $546.3 million. That metric tracks how much a firm actually paid to its limited partners.
And K.K.R.’s assets under management rose 13.9 percent from the third quarter, to $75.5 billion.
The firm’s co-founders and co-chairmen, Henry R. Kravis and George R. Roberts, said in a statement that that the growth of their private equity portfolio outpaced the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index last year by about 7 percent last year.
