[3] Kohlberg served in the United States Navy during World War II and went on to college and graduate school on the GI Bill.
[7] Kravis and his associates created a series of limited partnerships to acquire these various corporations, ones they judged were performing well below their sales and profit potential or where there were untapped financial assets that could be monetized.
In most cases, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co put up ten percent of the acquisition price from its own funds and borrowed the rest from investors by issuing high-yield bonds.
[10] By 1978, with the revision of the ERISA regulations, the nascent KKR was successful in raising its first institutional fund with approximately $30 million of investor commitments.
[11] In 1987 Kohlberg resigned from KKR over differences in strategy and Henry Kravis and George Roberts assumed full leadership of the firm.