Kohlberg & Company is a leading private equity firm with over 30 years of successful experience executing transformational strategies enabling middle market companies to enhance business efficiency, breadth, growth and scale. A core tenet of the Firm’s success is the consistency with which the team executes optimization strategies across its portfolio.
Kohlberg at a glance
60
Professionals
9
Private Equity Funds Since Inception
$11 billion
Aggregate Commitments
85
Platform Investments
200
Add-on Acquisitions
$30 billion
Total Transaction Value
A Heritage of Value Creation
1987
Kohlberg & Company was founded by Jerome Kohlberg Jr., the senior founding partner of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., and James Kohlberg to concentrate on private equity investments in the middle market
1988
Kohlberg Investors I began investing, marking the inception of firm’s 30 year track record
2001
Kohlberg & Company accessed the institutional markets and raised Fund IV with $576 million
2007
Fund VI is raised with $1.5 billion of capital and is deployed consistently between 2007 and 2011, exemplifying the firm’s ability to source and execute successful deals during all phases of the economic cycle
2008
Leadership transitions to current management team of Sam Frieder (Managing Partner) and Gordon Woodward (CIO) who refined Kohlberg’s thesis-driven sourcing and operational transformation strategies
2008
Fund VI invests in United States Infrastructure Corporation, a simultaneous carve-out of two divisions from separate parent companies to create the #1 market share leader in underground utility locating. This investment began what is now a core practice area for the firm; Infrastructure Services, leading to investments in Franklin Energy Group (2015) and Osmose Utilities Services (2015)
2010
Fund VI invests in Phillips Plastics Corp, a contract manufacturer of medical devices, creating a foundation of sector expertise that led to investments in Spectrum Plastics Group (2014) and Cadence (2018)
2012
Fund VII commences investment period with $1.6 billion of capital. White Paper program becomes a core tenet of the firm’s investment and sourcing approach, enabling the firm to better control its sourcing destiny, linking portfolio construction goals with pre-diligenced deal flow, resulting in 9 of the 13 investments in Fund VII
2013
Fund VII invests in Risk Strategies, a specialty insurance broker, as a result of a White Paper in the sector. The investment’s success led to Kohlberg’s investment in U.S. Risk Insurance Group (2016) and several pivots on the original White Paper, resulting in theses and expertise in sub-sectors within insurance
2015
Leveraging the success and experience of its USIC investment, Kohlberg publishes its Infrastructure Services White Paper and complete its investment in Osmose Utilities Services.
2017
Fund VIII commences investment period with $2.2 billion of capital
2020
Fund IX commences with first investment in GPRS
2021
Fund IX closes with $3.4 billion in commitments