KKR does in Asia what it can't elsewhere

New York

KKR & Co is back in the business of public-to-private buyouts.

The New York-based investment firm on Tuesday announced a US$4.5 billion purchase of Japanese auto-parts maker Calsonic Kansei Corp, marking its first leveraged buyout of a publicly traded company since it snapped up Goodpack Ltd of Singapore in May 2014. Its most recent US take-private was more than three years ago, in March 2013.

KKR and most of its peers have curbed their pursuit of public-to-private buyouts lately amid lofty equity market valuations - especially in the US. Firms have preferred…