KKR delays public listing
Buyout firm postpones plan to go public on NYSE until 2009 at the earliest.
LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- Private equity titan Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is delaying its plan to go public until 2009 amid the credit crisis and turbulence in financial markets.
KKR had planned to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a takeover of its Amsterdam-listed investment fund KKR Private Equity Investors.
KKR Private Equity Investors said Monday it does not expect the transaction to be completed until next year at the earliest.
"Sources of liquidity may be not only more difficult, but also impossible to obtain in the current market environment," KKR Private Equity Investors said in a statement.
The company said that it would not be able to determine the impact the financial turmoil and credit crisis have had on its business until the end of the fourth quarter.
KKR, the buyout firm run by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, has been behind some of the biggest take-private deals in history and is still synonymous with its $31 billion takeover of RJR Nabisco in 1988.
But private equity firms, which rely heavily on debt to finance their deals, have been hit hard by tight credit markets and turbulence in the financial markets. 
