Earnings Labs

KKR & Co. Inc. (KKR)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 28, 2015

$104.05

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Transcript

Executives

Management

Craig Larson - Head-Investor Relations William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer Henry R. Kravis - Co-Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP George Rosenberg Roberts - Co-Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer

Analysts

Management

William Raymond Katz - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Michael S. Kim - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. Christopher M. Kotowski - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. (Broker) Craig Siegenthaler - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker) Michael R. Carrier - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Chris M. Harris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC Luke Montgomery - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC Brian B. Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research US LP Michael J. Cyprys - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Glenn Paul Schorr - Evercore ISI Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs Kenneth W. Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to KKR's Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, the conference will open for questions. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I will now hand the call over to Craig Larson, Head of Investor Relations for KKR. Craig, please go ahead.

Craig Larson - Head-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Amanda. Welcome everyone to our third quarter 2015 earnings calls. Thank you for joining. This afternoon I'm joined by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, our Co-Chairmen and Co-CEOs in addition to Bill Janetschek, our CFO; and Scott Nuttall, Global Head of Capital and Asset Management. Before we get underway, we would like to remind everyone that we'll refer to non-GAAP measures on the call, which are reconciled to GAAP figures in our press release. And this call will also contain forward-looking statements, which do not guarantee future events or performance. And please refer to our SEC filings for cautionary factors related to these statements. This afternoon, we've issued a press release with our results for the third quarter and like last quarter we've also posted a supplementary presentation on our website that we'll refer to over the course of the call. We do have a broader agenda to review with you this afternoon. As you've likely seen in the press release and as highlighted on the second page of our supplement, we've announced a change in our distribution policy from the variable policy you are all familiar with to a fixed distribution of $0.16 per quarter beginning with the fourth quarter of 2015, which would be paid in 2016. In addition, our board has authorized a $500 million share buyback plan. Our thinking on these changes are pretty straightforward and I'd like to point you to the third slide, excuse me. First, we think it's important to remember that employees own or control about 45% of KKR, so the natural alignment here is quite clear. Second, the best way for us to create equity value over the long term is to participate to a greater extent in everything that we do. This includes the investments that we make…

Craig Larson - Head-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, George. And with that we like to open the line to any questions. Now, before we begin it does look like we already have quite a few people in the queue, so if everyone could please ask only one question and then a follow-up if it's necessary and then rejoin the queue, we would appreciate it. So with that Amanda, we'll take the first question.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instruction] Our first question comes from Bill Katz of Citigroup. Your line is open.

William Raymond Katz - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open

Okay, thanks very much. Appreciate the enhanced disclosure. I guess just sort of stepping back and certainly appreciate Henry and George being online as well, how did you arrive at sort of the dynamics to which you are presenting this evening, sort of curious. So the $0.16 dividend, what was sort of your thinking behind that? And then as you're thinking about buyback, how is the market going to understand the pace of that buyback? I think the market's probably a little confused right now based on how the stock is trading after market, just about sort of the give-and-take between the balance sheet growth and the actual return of that capital. So, just trying to get a little more clarity of how to think about that buyback in some kind of specificity. William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Sure, Bill. As it relates to coming up with the distribution itself, as you know, we've been reporting fee and yield earnings for the past seven quarters and that is what we like to look at as our more recurring fee stream. If you go back and figure out what the average is over the last seven quarters, it roughly comes out to be anywhere between $0.15 and $0.16 and so we were comfortable that, that was going to be a floor where we could continue to pay that out without having to worry about trying to gain any extra economics from either balance sheet sales or carry. As it relates to the stock buyback, Scott? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Yeah, look, I think, Bill, the highest level we kind of came at the conclusion that the variable distribution was not going to ultimately get valued. So, let's pay out the very recurring portion of our earnings and that's the $0.16 per quarter, $0.64 a year, as Bill said, we've been run rating. And then, let's take the excess cash that we generate and do thinks with it that we think will get valued in the market over time. We took you through the balance sheet performance we think making investments off the balance sheet will create value over time and we think buying back our stock will create value over time as we can compound on a per share basis. Giving you specificity around the use of the $500 million, how fast we're going to use it? We'll see. We'll see how the stock trades. But our view has been, as Henry said, that looking at the course of last several quarters we've been very nice to have a buyback authorization in place, given how the stocks perform. So you should expect to see us using it. The pace we'll get back to you and let you know how much we use how quickly. But we expect that we'll be using it.

William Raymond Katz - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open

And just my follow-up on that. Is this a potential precursor toward a C Corp? Because I think one of the advantages of the PTP structure is sort of shielding that cash flow from carry. And obviously you are making a bigger statement about obviously opportunity to reinvest the capital as well as the fixed dividend. Is there any advantage at this point to retaining the PTP structure? And if so, what would that be? William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Bill, for the time being we look at alternatives all the time. We're quite comfortable with our structure as it sits today, although things could change. Thank you.

William Raymond Katz - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Kim of Sandler O'Neill. Your line is open. Michael S. Kim - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Hey, guys. Good afternoon. So, just to follow-up on the shift in capital management, I get the thinking behind the stock is a good value down at these levels, but I thought one of the rationales for buying in, the KFN portfolio a little over a year ago, and really kind of doubling down the balance sheet, if you will, was so that you could invest more behind your ideas. So now it seems by moving to a fixed distribution, the message you are putting out is that you want to – you want more capacity or at least you want to put that capacity to work more quickly to invest behind some of these opportunities that you are seeing. Is that kind of the right way to think about it from that perspective? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Hey, Michael, this is Scott, I'll take it. Look, I think in part, yes, but really If I were you I'd step back and say you are right. When we bought KFN, we said let's have more assets on the balance sheet, it will give us more fee and yield earnings. So we have a higher predictable base which we are now going to be paying out in the fixed distribution on a go-forward basis and we will have more capital that we could redeploy into higher returning opportunities, which as you can see on page nine of the deck, we've been doing that. So, we've been selling down some of the old legacy KFN investments and rotating into higher return opportunities. But…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Robert Lee of KBW. Your line is open. Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Thanks and good afternoon, guys. Sticking with the theme of the day, if I think about your change in capital management strategy, I mean at the end of the day, it's really adopting a more traditional strategy distribution that kind of follows cash generation earnings over time, reinvesting the business – whether you are building widgets or investing to compound growth and share repurchase where it's attractive. So, should we also think that this $0.16 kind of distribution if you continue to grow your third-party business and are successful, that we should really just thinking of this in a more traditional sense that there should be growth in that base distribution that maybe mirrors your book value growth over time? William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Hey, Rob, this is Bill. You're thinking about this correctly. We're coming up with now a fixed distribution and as we continue to grow the business and we perform, you can expect that that number would go up, but right now we've come out with $0.64 for the very short-term, we're not going to change that. But again, if the business performs and we don't have additional uses for the capital that dividend could increase for sure. Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Probably just one quick follow-up? I know you just mentioned you are going to have the new segment reporting. I'm just curious, are you going to maintain most of the current metrics that you report in terms of DE, FRE and yield earnings? William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah, Rob, we'll continue to report that information plus we'll also provide supplemental information and really try to lay out exactly how we're running the business as well, so we'll provide both. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Yes, I think we'll be including kind of numbers like pages five and nine, Rob. So, it'll give you better sense for the aggregate balance sheet performance also. Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Kotowski of Oppenheimer. Your line is open. Christopher M. Kotowski - Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. (Broker): I can't resist the topic of the day either. So I mean, if we look at your distribution last year, it was around $1.90, the year before, $1.40, and we had you on track to high $1.60s this year. So I figure on average it was like about $1.70 and that's about $1.5 billion and that was roughly 75% of your cash distributable earnings overall. And if we look at the $500 million buyback and add the distribution, it adds up to more like $1 billion rather than $1.5 billion. So, should we think of it that way roughly that you are thinking in terms of a 50% payout between cash and distributions? Or is that not the way that you looked at it? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Well, I think the way we looked at it, Chris, to be really clear is kind of going back to what I said before. We think the market will value the more fixed component of our earnings and that's what we put into the fixed distribution and we are saying we are going to treat it more like a normal corporate dividend, so regardless of what we earn we intent to pay that. And then the excess over that amount we said that we thought that could create more value by investing more behind everything that we do and buying our stock. I think the point that as you think your way through the $500 million buyback, that's really just applied over the public shares though, because if you're going to do your math…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Craig Siegenthaler with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Craig Siegenthaler - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Good evening. So I'm going to change up the topic here and move over to fee-earning AUM. It's really been ranged down to the past two years here. And I'm just wondering, kind of given the puts and takes around capital-raising operations, do you expect fee-earning AUM to start to grow in the intermediate term? Or are we really waiting on North America Fund XII here to really accelerate things here? William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Hey, Craig, this is Bill. When you take a look, during this quarter we actually brought on about $3 billion of AUM, but keep in mind that we've got approximately $11 billion that is committed that under the – certainly on the public market side, we only get paid a fee and a carry when that capital is invested, and so, as capital gets deployed certainly on the public market side, you are going to see a ramp up in AUM and fee-paying AUM. Likewise, as you know we are out raising several funds and we would think that based upon the good performance we have with a lot of the funds that we have taking our latest North America fund being in the top quartile that when we go out and raise that successor fund, we would hope that that fund might be larger than the last. Scott, any more color you want to add. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Yeah, the only thing I would add, if you look at the last 12 months, Craig, we've kind of raised $15…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Carrier of Bank of America. Your line is open. Michael R. Carrier - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: All right. Thanks, everyone. I guess just another question on the shift in the distribution strategy. Yes, I guess it's a couple-part question. But one is, if the balance sheet is growing like our LPs, are you okay with that? Two is just when you think about the shareholder base of yourself but also the sector; I don't know if you've done any analysis in terms of how many investors are in it for the yield or the income, and what turnover you expect? And then when you think about the cycle, you use like 2010 to 2015 to come up with some of those returns. It's been a good five or six years. Now granted you used 18% and 13% on the math. So we can use a lower kind of return basis. But just wanted to get your thoughts, when you think about deploying that extra cash that you are not paying out, as you get later in the cycle, are the odds of more buybacks, even more than offsetting dilution, picking up when the valuations in the market are more full, versus obviously when things start to come under more pressure, you have more opportunity to actually invest in the balance sheet. Just want to get your sense on from a cyclical standpoint, how you think about that. Sorry for the multipart, but thanks. William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: No problem, Michael. So, I guess let me take them in turn. So the balance sheet growth question, are the LPs okay with it? 100%. If you think about it, we are extraordinarily aligned with our limited partners. We're…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Harris of Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Chris M. Harris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open

Thanks, guys. So you've made a pretty compelling investment case for KKR and I'm just wondering with the stock down here, why wouldn't we want to be even more aggressive with the buyback than you've already laid out and I know there is some float issues, but, look, even $500 million is what 3% of the cap and 6% of the float. So I'm just not understanding why we wouldn't want to be more aggressive on that especially given where the valuation is? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Look, Chris, I think it is 6% of the float which if you look at a number of buybacks, it's probably middle of the fairway, but if we use it all, we can always go back ask the board for a larger authorization. So I wouldn't get too focused on the amount, this seems like a good starting number and let's see what happens. Henry R. Kravis - Co-Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer: This is Henry, I'll just add to that and that is that we have to look at that and weigh against all the other opportunities that we have whenever you're buying stock, you look at that and you say, is that a good risk adjusted return for the capital that we have or we better to make an investment in another entity or to buy a company or take a bigger position in one of our own companies. And that's what we're always weighing it against.

Chris M. Harris - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open

Understood. Thank you. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Luke Montgomery of AllianceBernstein. Your line is open. Luke Montgomery - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Unfortunately, I'm going to resume beating the dead horse. It seems like the change in distribution policy is partly that you've reached a breaking point with how the stock was being treated by the market, with the credit you're getting for the distributions. But, just being a little bit cynical, I guess, you could say, you added a corporate agency problem to what's already kind of a volatile business and volatile cash flows and it's unclear I guess how that's supposed to help investors get comfortable with the business model or obtain a fair valuation. So, I think, beyond the value creation you see to buy your stock or reinvest in the business, I get that. How do you think through the potential negative signals to the market as you arrived at this decision? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Well, I guess, Luke, I'm not sure we – I don't perceive a negative signal, I think frankly what we're saying is, we own the better part of half of the company. Whatever we do with the company, impacts the people at KKR to a much greater extent than anyone else and what we're saying is that we think, over time, we can create more value with this capital management policy as opposed to our previous one. And as I said in the prepared remarks, we're investors. We showed you on page 9 of the deck how we've been doing with the balance sheet investments. We think we can continue to make good investments and if the world dislocates,…

Craig Larson - Head-Investor Relations

Management

Luke, I think that last point is actually an important one in terms of some of the changes – this is Craig – going forward. If you look in our press release, we historically have given lots of visibility in terms of the performance of the private equity portfolio. We're going to give going forward that same level of transparency in terms of the balance sheet investment performance. So, again, the detail we have on slides 5 and 9, which we haven't disclosed consistently except through our calls. And I think, over time, the thought we have is if we're able to perform that, over time, the balance sheet is going to be viewed as a long-term source of value creation for us versus a source of earnings volatility. Luke Montgomery - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. Thank you very much. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Bedell of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Brian B. Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Hi. Good evening, folks. Just following on Luke's question about the – and a little bit of your answer to the prior question about the shake out of the investor base on the distribution, how do you arrive at a view of how important the distribution is to certain investors in the stock and then contrasting that with how you think investors will value the amped-up balance sheet strategy?

Craig Larson - Head-Investor Relations

Management

A couple of thoughts on this, Brian. When we look at the shareholder base and how those investors define themselves and we've done all of this splicing and dicing that you'd expect, the largest holders of our stock are value folks, they're growth folks, and they're growth at a reasonable price folks. So your absolute traditional plain vanilla yield-oriented investors are not, despite the yield that we actually have given to the shareholders, is not as high as a growth and value oriented people. Now I'm not also – I'm not trying to suggest that our shareholders don't value having a current yield component or having recognized the yield that we've paid, but when I think of the composition of our shareholder base and who we end up spending most of our time talking to, it is much more highly skewed towards growth in value-oriented investors than it is to your traditional yield-oriented investors. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Look, I think, ultimately, what we're saying – and we think our shareholders will agree with this, as we continue to generate investment performance, better uses of our capital through compounding in the buyback program will, over time, exceed the market value of the distributions we're paying. And what we're saying is let's pay the fixed piece that people can model and understand in the variable component, we'll continue to tell everybody exactly how it's generated. But we think, over time, the market will value it more if we use it for buybacks and we use it to make our own investments and compound faster.

Brian B. Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Okay, fair enough. And just a follow up, I mean does this – the fact that you're not beholden to variable distributions, does this change the way you think about timing of realizations in any way to either give you more flexibility to hold on to positions longer through different market cycles or does that not really matter? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: No change. I mean, as I said, we're fiduciaries for our LPs, we'll continue to manage our portfolio and create exits when we think it's appropriate, so, no change in terms of how we think about exits. Henry R. Kravis - Co-Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer: And by the way that's the way it has been since we started the firm, we're not tied to any particular time to get out. We really look and see what do we feel is the best time to maximize the value for our limited partners.

Brian B. Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Yeah. Great. Thanks very much. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Patrick Davitt with Autonomous. Your line is open.

Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst · Autonomous. Your line is open

Hey, guys. Thanks. A bit of a hypothetical, I guess, your two largest positions on the balance sheet and maybe even in the funds are now liquid or will be in the first quarter when the Walgreens lockup comes up, so it's not hard to imagine a cash flow situation next year that significantly better than it has been this year. How do we think about that against this new distribution policy and how you even think about the amount of cash that could coming through the business when that's happening? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Well, look, I think – thanks, Patrick, it's Scott – the Walgreens stock's performed very well. First Data has also moved up very materially for us over the course of the last 12 months. So, we continue to benefit from both of those holdings continuing to accrue up. As I said in the answer to the last question, I don't think the change in the distribution policy or capital management strategy is going to change how we think about those investments. What we will do going forward and what we've done in the past is take a look at opportunities that we have to invest throughout the firm and compare that to the upside and the potential we see in those two investments. We said in last quarter's call that you're going to see us, from time to time, take some more meaningful positions in companies. Walgreens and First Data are two prime examples of that. But clearly, over time, we sell down those positions which we could, but if we did, we would be able to redeploy that capital into other investments including buying back our own stock. But it does not change at all how we think about the monetizations. We're very excited to be in partnership with Stefano Pessina and Frank Bisignano and we think both companies have quite a bit of opportunity ahead.

Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst · Autonomous. Your line is open

I guess my point – just to ask it in a different way is that the amount of cash flow being generated could be so high, it's hard to imagine that there might be that many opportunities to reinvest it. Is it fair to assume then maybe the repurchase would be amped-up with all that excess cash or that would depend on where the price was obviously? George Rosenberg Roberts - Co-Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer: Well, over the last 40 years that we've been in business, we've actually invested $65 billion in private equity and we've actually turned that into $130 billion. So with respect to finding good opportunities in the firm that we have that could invest in many different ways on the capital structure around the world. Finding the opportunities is not going to be the issue for us.

Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst · Autonomous. Your line is open

Okay. Thanks. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Cyprys of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Michael J. Cyprys - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey, thanks for taking the question. Just curious, how you're thinking about the overall yield that you're looking to target to investors on, say, an after-tax basis all-in? Is that something on the specific basis you're targeting? William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Well, when you think about the way we're structured, obviously we're a PTP and one of the things that we took into consideration when we analyzed the distribution was that we wanted to make sure that we were going to right-size the distribution to deal with taxable income flow-through for our investors. Michael J. Cyprys - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: And so that reflects some of the changes that you've made. I'm just wondering if you could just elaborate a little bit more around that. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Well, I think the bottom line, Michael, is that the fixed distribution we expect would cover any tax payments for our investors who are taxable, which, keep in mind, is a subset of our investor base. We have a lot of folks who are not taxable or the way that they look at their returns is on a pre-tax basis, but the yield has been set at such a level that we would expect that it would cover taxes for taxpayers at the highest level. Michael J. Cyprys - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Got it. So, investors would receive enough to cover the allocated income that they would get? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Glenn Schorr of Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Glenn Paul Schorr - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI. Your line is open

Hi. Thanks very much. Just a quick question on environment, obviously the market has gotten a lot better in the equity market since last quarter, but I'm still seeing hung deals and inability to get certain deals financed. Just wondering if you could talk to the financing markets and how prevalent some of the issues are that will be super helpful. Thanks. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Sure, Glenn, it's Scott. Look, I think you're right. We're noticing the same thing. The leveraged financed markets in the U.S. getting a little bit more tricky, so the amount of supply coming has increased quite a bit. We are seeing – in some of the smaller deals or nichey deals, we're seeing some deals that get the rates pushed up to get cleared. In some cases, they're not getting syndicated but it's a bit of bifurcated market right now. So, if it's a good quality deal, it's getting down well. If it's a story credit, tougher quality, lot of leverage, then it is much more challenging. And so, it's bifurcation, we continue to see it, and we're watching the supply/demand balance as new deals get announced and the CLO machine slows down in the market a little bit. Europe, it feels like there is less supply that's been created, a bit more of a healthy dynamic, but we are watching the U.S. And any of these – anything that happens especially at the smaller end of the market or where the more story credits creates quite a bit of opportunity for us on our private credit businesses where we've seen our overall deployment continue to increase this year.

Glenn Paul Schorr - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI. Your line is open

Thanks. And I don't want to put words in your mouth, so – but the follow up question I had that you partially answered is, with all the deals that have been announced, say, over the past six months, there is a forward calendar that needs to get funded, you see that as more opportunity than risk, is that correct? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Well, I'd say, couple of things. One, in terms of financing the types of transactions we do in private equity on the new deal front, we haven't seen any material change in behaviors. So we're still able to raise financing for new transactions. At the smaller end of the market, the mid-market and below, which is where do a lot of our work, in our private credit businesses, we are very active because we are finding banks less excited about underwriting those opportunities. What we are finding, though, is if there is a dislocation because the market backs up, and there is a lot of supply and it's hard for the market to absorb, that will be a great buying opportunity for us, both across our leverage credit businesses where we manage more liquid pools and in our private credit business. So that's the entire picture I think.

Glenn Paul Schorr - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI. Your line is open

Okay. That's super helpful. Thank you. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Blostein of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open

Great. Thanks, guys for taking the question. I know the call is running a little late. So, just one more, I guess, on the pace and timing of the new capital policy. I guess the one thing that's difficult to understand is that at least in the prior methodology, we still kind of knew that while your cash flows might be volatile, 75% of those will be able to get back. So, now when you think about the relative attractiveness of making an investment on balance sheet versus buying back your own stock, how do you, I guess, make that distinction, is that a more formulaic kind of ROE or IRR type of target that you will be considering? Because I do you think ultimately the time to invest on the balance sheet will probably coincide with the time to buy back your stock because they will probably happen simultaneously. So just curious to get your thoughts on that, thanks. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Hey, Alex, this is Scott. We're not going to be able to give you a specific formula to point to, but I think you can see the returns we've been generating off the balance sheet and we're looking for opportunities to generate very attractive double-digit-plus kind of returns and we will compare that to the opportunity with our stock. We think, right now, frankly, the stock is at a very attractive level. But as – over time, as the stock price shifts and the opportunity set shifts, we'll keep you updated on how we're thinking about it. We're not going to be able to give you specific math, per se, but we'll tell you how we're thinking about it.

Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open

Okay. And just one for Bill, on the – just on the P&L. When we look at net interest income and dividends for this quarter, there has been a fair amount of fluctuation, I guess, in that line item in general. So as we're thinking ahead, what are the kind of puts and takes of the drivers there and is this a decent enough of a run rate to assume over the next couple of quarters? Thanks. William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Yes, you're right. This quarter, the number was a little lower. And so, depending on the cash flows from the investments that we have in real estate or energy, I wouldn't say they are more seasonal, but they are. And so, what you typically see is a little more cash flow come in in the second quarter and the fourth quarter. But on a run rate basis, when you take a look at that, I would say that number is going to be anywhere between $50 million and $60 million each quarter. And if you take a look at the nine months number, that's pretty close to being spot-on with the $50 million to $60 million cash earnings per quarter.

Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open

Great. Thanks very much. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have a follow up question from Bill Katz of Citigroup. Your line is open.

William Raymond Katz - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open

Okay. Thanks. Just actually a couple of follow-ups, if I can do so. What were your thoughts as you thought about different strategies, obviously you need to go down this route, but instead of shifting the payout policy of doing more of a levered recapitalization and maybe putting some debt up against the balance sheet and buying in stock without really adjusting the variable, what were some of the mechanics behind that? And perhaps related to that is, what's the multiple you're assuming on the fee paying AUM component of your business when you went through this corporate finance discussion? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Hey, Bill, this is Scott. I'll take that. Look, I think from – the first question, the leverage recap comment, look, I think we've run the firm historically with modest net leverage to zero net leverage. Our perspective is that we have a significant amount of upside through the companies that we're invested in, many of which are levered themselves as you know. And so, we didn't think it was appropriate to add a significant amount of leverage to the corporation at the risk. Actually, one of the slides in the deck we talk about is that simultaneous equation. We don't want to add a lot of franchise risk by adding a lot of leverage at the HoldCo. So, that's the main reason that we decided leveraged recap wasn't something that was attractive. In terms of the multiple on our fee businesses, I think you probably know the answer to that as best we do. I think our observation is that if you look at how we make money, certainly, we have a good chunk of our revenues come from fees, but we have a more meaningful component that comes from carry and from our balance sheet. And so, every time we go through our analysis, it's all connected. Investment return is the most important thing we can focus on and generate. If we generate investment returns, we'll have more carry, we'll have more balance sheet income. It'll be easier to raise larger pools of capital from third-parties and we'll therefore have more fees. So we're focused on what we can control, which is making good investments and monitoring them and making sure that we create real value. And so, that's how we thought about it. And all of that accrues to the positive for all of us as shareholders. So we think of it as, frankly, a more fungible set of revenues where all things benefit from generating good investment returns.

William Raymond Katz - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open

Great. Just one last one. Thanks for your patience. What's been the internal reaction to this, just in terms of is there any pressure on comp? I think earlier on you sort of said you have fee-related margins or probably your pre-tax ENI margins are going to be relatively stable in the range you offered. But any pressure on comp as an offset to what could be some foregone income? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: No.

William Raymond Katz - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citigroup. Your line is open

Okay. All right, thanks for taking all my questions tonight. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have a follow up from Kenneth Hill from Barclays. Your line is open.

Kenneth W. Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open

Okay. Thanks. Good evening, everyone. Just looking at the credit portfolio on the balance sheet, there's been a few bumps in terms of performance particularly from the CLOs and just a more difficult mark-to-market here this quarter. How should we think about that piece of the business going forward, are you comfortable with some of the levels of volatility you see in the portfolio? And would you expect to maybe size or change the composition of that over time? Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: I mean, I – go ahead. William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: No, I was going to say, when you take a look at what happened during this quarter, the LSTA was down 1.4%. We own sub notes in our CLOs and so you're going to see the impact go through on a mark-to-market basis this quarter. But when you take a look at our balance sheet and the exposure we've got to the CLOs, we're pretty comfortable with those positions. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Yeah, the other thing I would do is just ask you to rise up our overall – the leverage credit performed about in line with the LSTA for the quarter. So there's nothing of interest there. But I'd just point you back to page five, the balance sheet performance as a whole down 2.3% for the quarter, the MSCI down 8.3%. So, overall, in any given quarter, you're going to have some things working really well, some things not. We'd ask you to look at the whole body of work which is kind of the overall investment portfolio performance. William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Right. And again, what goes through ENI is mark-to-market.

Kenneth W. Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open

Okay. Fair enough there. Just a quick one then. From a cash perspective, is there any level of cash you guys need from a regulatory perspective that you would need to either run the business, I guess? William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: No Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Nothing material. Maybe in our capital markets business, but it's not a material amount.

Kenneth W. Hill - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is open

Okay. Thanks for taking my questions. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have a follow up from the line of Patrick Davitt of Autonomous. Your line is open.

Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst · Autonomous. Your line is open

Thanks for the follow up. It's a quick one. Is there any kind of restriction or quiet period that would keep you from being in the market in your shares tomorrow? William Joseph Janetschek - Member & Chief Financial Officer: Patrick, we're not going to be able to enter the market until Friday. So we're releasing earnings tonight and we're not going to be able to participate until Friday morning.

Patrick Davitt - Autonomous Research US LP

Analyst · Autonomous. Your line is open

Thank you. Scott C. Nuttall - Member & Head of Global Capital and Asset Management Group, KKR & Co. LP: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions. I would like to hand the call back to Craig Larson for closing remarks.

Craig Larson - Head-Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, Amanda, and thank you everybody for joining our call. I know it's been a longer call than usual. If you have any follow-ups, please feel free to follow up with us directly after the call. Have a good night.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's program. You may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.