Bloomberg on Henry Kravis and George Roberts and KKR

Bloomberg recently had a rather fantastic write up of our very own Henry Kravis and his views vis a vis Warren Buffet. His relationship with fellow CMCer, George Roberts, is profiled in a few paragraphs, excerpted here:

On a dreary Wednesday in October at KKR headquarters in New York, Kravis, in a crisp white shirt and blue tie, is leading a meeting of KKR’s portfolio management committee, with Roberts joining by videoconference from KKR’s Menlo Park, California, office. Their close relationship has been a key to KKR’s success over the years. The cousins played together as kids and studied at the same college, Claremont McKenna in Southern California.

. . .

After going their separate ways for graduate school they reconnected at Bear Stearns, where they worked on some of Wall Street’s first leveraged buyouts. In 1976 both left Bear to form KKR with colleague Jerome Kohlberg. (He quit KKR in 1987 at age 61.) Decades of mind-melding have left Kravis and Roberts able to finish each other’s sentences, a feat they perform often. When Roberts visits KKR’s New York headquarters, he dips into the stash of Toblerone chocolate, jelly beans and caramel Nips in the top drawer of Kravis’ desk. Kravis says the last time the two disagreed with each other was when they fought over a bicycle -- in 1951. [CJ: Fortunately such fights are prevented by our green bikes program...]