KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE:KKR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator: Our next question is from Finian O’Shea with Wells Fargo Security. Please proceed with your question.

Finian O’Shea: Hi, everyone. Good morning. A follow on to the insurance ROE, appreciate your color on portfolio rotation into higher yields driving the impact, with that considered, how long should we expect the normalized ROE remaining elevated in today’s environment with today’s portfolio understanding the inputs can be hard to predict?

Rob Lewin: Yes, Fin, thanks for the question. Listen, I do think that 12% to 13% range continues to be a good one for next year. And while there’s some things that can elevate that number as we look forward, there were some timing elements in 2022 as well on that portfolio rotation. So I think that’s still the good range for the near term. As I said, we hope that the GA team is able to generate returns that are in excess of that. They’ve done that in 2021 and 2022. But our internal modeling suggests that’s the right range for 2023.

Operator: Our next question is from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Michael Cyprys: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just on deployment, just curious how you would characterize the 71 billion of capital that was deployed in 2022. Seems like a large quantum of capital, similar level as 2021, but a tougher backdrop. So just curious how you’d characterize that relative to your full potential? And what’s the scope for that deployment to say grow at a meaningfully step function higher level, maybe in 2023 or 2024. Just how you’re thinking about the capacity you have to deploy and what that might look like five years from now? And then just a quick housekeeping question for Rob, just if you could help quantify the investments and realizations off the balance sheet in the quarter? Thank you.

Craig Larson: Hey, Mike. It’s Craig. Why don’t I start on deployment. I think a couple of things. When you look at our activities, one, look, the primary markets are pretty shut. Capital is very precious. Those are good things for us in particularly when you look at a 100 plus billion of dry powder that we have as a firm. So I think when we look back at our activities in 2022, I think we feel very good about capital that we put to work. We’re value focused. We love carve-outs. One of the things Rob talked about that I think is pretty interesting against just the amount of public to privates we did in an environment where public markets are really dislocated. So I think for us to have announced or closed on 10 take privates is a pretty interesting statistic.

Eight of those were done outside of the U.S. in private equity, infrastructure, real estate. So I think on balance we feel really good about that balance of activity. A couple of other thoughts just, if you look at deployment, some statistics that as we go through things, it’s always kind of interesting to reflect back. I think one, you’re seeing real diversification. So in 2022, traditional private equity deployment for us was $14 billion, real estate was $14 billion, infrastructure was $13 billion. So I think when you look back at this €“ it’s really a reflection of how the firm has meaningfully grown and diversified by strategy and by geography. Kind of brings us to the second point which is some of the growth you’ve seen. So in real assets, as an example is our infra and real estate footprint has grown, you’ve seen deployment grow meaningfully.

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