Full Report

KKR & Co. Inc.'s management explains the business in its own materials. The slides below do the most of that work, pulled from the documents preserved in Sources. Each source link opens the complete presentation at that slide in a new tab.

Overview Presentation – 1Q'26 — 1Q'26

KKR's current standing overview deck: what the firm owns, how the three segments earn, and where management says growth comes from. · Open the full document →

Investor Day 2024 — 2024

KKR's most recent investor day — 302 pages of segment-by-segment detail and the medium-term targets management set for itself. · Open the full document →

Infrastructure Overview – Morgan Stanley US Financials Conference — June 2026

A short deck from the head of Real Assets on KKR's fastest-growing real assets business: returns, scale and the current investment theme. · Open the full document →

More from management

Overview Presentation – 4Q'25 — 4Q'25 · 51 pages · The full-year 2025 numbers, and the same overview deck as it read before the Arctos acquisition. · Open →

Infrastructure Overview – Barclays Global Financial Services Conference — 2024 · 15 pages · The earlier infrastructure deck, with the CyrusOne case study and the climate strategy launch not in the 2026 version. · Open →

Overview Presentation – 1Q'24 — 1Q'24 · 50 pages · The first overview deck reported on the three-segment basis, right after the 2024 investor day. · Open →

Origination: Global Atlantic and ABF — 2024 · 17 pages · How insurance liabilities are turned into KKR-originated assets, at the point the strategy was being sold to investors. · Open →

Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference — 2023 · 36 pages · The segment realignment explained to a conference audience — a shorter version of the November announcement. · Open →

Strategic Update — 2023 · 34 pages · The announcement that created today's structure: buying the rest of Global Atlantic and forming Strategic Holdings. · Open →

Private Credit Overview — 2023 · 19 pages · A standalone primer on direct lending and asset-based finance, from before those businesses roughly doubled. · Open →

---

KKR & Co. Inc.'s management answers for the business every quarter. These are the exchanges that explain it best — verbatim, from the call transcripts preserved in Sources. Each link opens the full transcript at that page in a new tab.

Q1 2026 Earnings Call — Q1 2026

The current state of the firm in management's words: capital allocation discipline, a guidance target being walked down in public, and the private-credit scare met with scale figures. · Open the full transcript →

Why the Insurance segment line understates Global Atlantic: the rest of the economics land in asset management.

Craig Larson (Partner and Head of Investor Relations): Insurance segment operating earnings were $260 million. Now as a reminder, we report the insurance investment portfolio largely based on cash outcomes. So to give you a sense of the embedded profitability as we've done in the last couple of quarters, our insurance operating earnings would have been slightly north of $300 million in Q1 if we included the impact of marks on investments where a significant portion of the return relates to appreciation rather than cash yield. And as a reminder, Insurance segment operating earnings alone do not capture the full economics of GA to KKR. Page 22 of our earnings release details the management fees under our investment management agreement, fees from IV-related vehicles, where we have over $60 billion of AUM that wouldn't exist without GA, alongside GA related capital markets fees. When you take all of that together, total insurance economics over the last twelve months were $1.9 billion. That's net of compensation, up 14% versus the prior period.

p. 1 · Read in context →

Sizes the private-credit exposure the market was worried about: direct lending is 5% of AUM, the private BDC 0.4%.

Craig Larson (Partner and Head of Investor Relations): Now as you can imagine, we've been filling a lot of questions on direct lending, so we've added a couple of pages to our earnings release. First, just to level set, if you turn to Page 20, you see the size of our direct lending platform. In total, direct lending is $39 billion or 5% of our AUM. It's an important business for us, but in the framework of KKR, it's of modest size. And with a lot of focus on redemption activity in the wealth space, we note the size of our private BDC footprint in the second bar from the right. It's even smaller, around $3 billion of AUM or 0.4% of our AUM in total. In terms of our public BDC, FSK is a little less than 2% of our AUM. FSK reports its Q1 earnings next week. We're not going to get ahead of that. It's important, though, not to conflate FSK's portfolio with other pools of capital. So looking at Page 21, you see investment performance across our institutional strategies as well as our private BDC, all vintages since 2017. You see very consistent outperformance versus benchmark. We thought the more granular framing of investment performance here across the direct lending platform would be helpful context for everyone.

p. 2 · Read in context →

The capital allocation rule: four tools, no fixed budget for any of them, judged on recurring earnings per share.

Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): I'd like to next shift to capital allocation. It is an area of critical importance to our long-term performance and we have been making some important and deliberate decisions. As a reminder, we have focused on four key tools available to us to allocate our cash flow. Strategic M&A, insurance, share buybacks and strategic holdings. Each of these tools takes full advantage of the KKR ecosystem, and as a result, have the potential for high ROEs. Importantly, we do not have a framework that assigns a specific amount of capital spend into any one of these areas. Our approach here is all about how we take our marginal dollar of cash flows and drive the most amount of recurring durable and growing earnings on a per share basis. That is the mindset we have consistently taken to capital allocation, and it is one that is highly aligned with our shareholders given employees here own roughly 30% of our stock. We believe that we have delivered a lot of value to our shareholders through strategic capital allocation, and we are very confident in our ability to continue to do so in the future.

p. 3 · Read in context →

Management walks its own $7 ANI target down mid-year and explains why delayed monetizations are deferred, not lost.

Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): Finally, before I'm going to hand it over to Scott, I did want to provide an update on our 2026 guidance. First, based on the underlying momentum that we are seeing across the business, we continue to feel very confident in our ability to exceed our targets for fundraising, strategic holdings operating earnings and FRE on a per share basis. Turning to ANI. As we said last quarter, following our bottoms-up budgeting process, we entered the year expecting 2026 ANI to reach $7-plus per share, assuming a constructive and more normalized monetization environment. At that level, earnings growth would be approximately 45% year-over-year. So it's clearly an ambitious target, but one that we did have line of sight to achieving. That said, the operating environment four months into the year has, of course, been a bit more challenging than what was embedded in our plan. Importantly, we are still seeing healthy monetization activity. Gross monetization revenues in Q1 were up more than 50% year-over-year. And when we look at exit since March 31 as well as signed transactions expected to close in the coming quarters, that represents over $1.2 billion of gross monetization revenue for KKR. Notably, that is the largest forward monetization figure we've discussed on a call in our history. So while we continue to generate very strong outcomes, we do have modestly less visibility today than what our budget would have suggested at this point in the year. As a result, if you were handicapping our ability to reach $7 per share, we do think it is more likely that we land below that level. Importantly, if that were to happen, any delayed monetizations that impact 2026 would not be lost as we would expect them to shift to 2027 and beyond.

p. 4 · Read in context →

How broad-based employee ownership shows up in returns, with the CoolIT exit as the worked example.

Bart Dziarski (RBC Capital Markets); Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): Congrats on the CoolIT realization. And I noticed you implemented an employee ownership program at acquisition. So could you maybe speak to how that program contributed to the successful outcome of that deal? And then maybe more broadly on KKR's ownership program at the portfolio company level? […] Bart, it's Rob. Thanks for bringing that one up. CoolIT was obviously an awesome outcome for our investors. It is not often that we exit a business at almost a 15x multiple of money. And as you noted, CoolIT is one of 85 KKR portfolio companies globally now that are part of ou broad-based employee ownership programs where every employee, so it's not just senior management, are equity owners. And in the case of CoolIT, most tenured employees there are going to receive roughly eight times their annual base salary at exit. So a really meaningful outcome. And deservingly given the progress and the returns that we were able to generate at CoolIT. So more broadly, if you look at those 85 businesses that I referenced, we now have approximately 200,000 nonmanagement equity owners in those businesses. And we're really proud of this initiative. We know for sure that it drives better outcomes at our portfolio companies. We see it in the numbers. You've got higher engagement scores. You've got higher retention rates, working capital efficiency is up, margins are up, and ultimately, profitability is up. And so we have developed this program in a way where we've got the full employee base at these companies feeling like owners in the business, and they're delivering better results.

p. 7 · Read in context →

The hardest question on the call — are LPs frustrated by exit delays? — answered with the DPI record.

Brennan Hawken (BMO Capital Markets); Scott Nuttall (Co-Chief Executive Officer): Wanted to follow up on Glenn Schorr's question. So—I couldn't resist, sorry. So look, the struggle with the $7 is, I think, probably not that surprising, like the environment, given where it is, you can look at consensus and saw the basically it was anticipated. But the one part that I'm sort of curious about is on the realizations and the timing. I know you guys have been a lot stronger on DPI. But how is the potential for further delays in monetization and realizations going across with the LP community. This has been an ongoing delay across the industry. And so is that leading to some frustrations and how are you managing that? […] Brennan, it's Scott. Just to add a couple of things, one, thanks for the question. I wouldn't confuse the message around we may delay some strategic exits with kind of what we're hearing from the LPs. We have, I think, in the deck, the IR deck on the website, a slide somewhere that talks about how we've given cash back from our private equity fund in the U.S. or that business, we've given more back than we called nine out of the last ten years. So what we're hearing from the LPs is we're best-in-class in terms of DPI and cash back, and they know that there's more coming. So the LPs are happy with us. That's why you see a record fundraise in private equity, the $23 billion that Rob mentioned, which is just the U.S. component of our private equity business. But overall, fundraising is up, and we're finding investors want to do even more with us. And I mentioned this dispersion we're seeing across our sector. There is extreme bifurcation, and we're getting a lot of very positive feedback on how we're performing and sending so much cash back relative to others. So I wouldn't confuse the two topics. This is helping us grow the firm faster by virtue of the performance.

p. 11 · Read in context →

Q4 and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call — Q4 2025

The annual strategy call: the Arctos acquisition and the M&A framework behind it, the operating-leverage math, and the accounting choices that shape reported insurance earnings. · Open the full transcript →

The five tests any KKR acquisition has to pass, applied in real time to the Arctos deal.

Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): Importantly, as you think about this acquisition, it is highly consistent with the strategic M&A framework we have previously laid out for our investors and analysts. That includes five things of note. Number one, access to leadership positions in large addressable markets that would be difficult to build organically. Number two is long-dated capital. The vast majority of Arctos' $15 billion of AUM is long-duration in nature, with no fixed end date. It is really as close to permanent capital as it gets in the asset manager space. Number three, highly complementary capabilities with a differentiated origination and sourcing engine that we believe can be valuable across the full KKR & Co. Inc. ecosystem, in particular, our insurance business. Number four would be the synergy that exists around distribution across both wealth and institutional channels. Number five, most importantly, strong cultural alignment between our two firms.

p. 3 · Read in context →

Operating leverage quantified: management fees up 46% against 21% expense growth, the inverse of the three closest peers.

Alexander Blostein (Goldman Sachs); Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): Just to follow up on Glenn's question and Scott, your answer. Obviously, lots of anxiety in the market. It obviously continues today. When you think about the more durable part of the business, Rob, I heard you talk about sort of confidence around exceeding the FRE target you set out for 2026. I think it was $4.50 plus. Can you talk maybe through the building blocks, your confidence levels in those building blocks? Specifically, with respect to management fees, what you expect that growth to look like in '26? […] I'm going to give you a stat, and we were looking at this as part of our recent budgeting process, but I think it's a helpful one. If you look from the end of 2022, so really post-COVID, through to, and I'm going to give you LTM nine-thirty numbers from a comparable perspective. We have grown our management fees by 46% relative to our operating expenses by 21%. Now compare that to our three closest peers, and it is pretty much the inverse. They've all grown their operating expense at a pace that exceeds their management fees, and in two of the three by a pretty substantial margin. […] The last point, because I think it's also helpful in the context of thinking about our ability to achieve that $4.50 plus target or meaningfully exceed it, is when we gave that target, that was a little over two years ago. At the time, our LTM FRE per share was $2.55. Because of the momentum we have across all of those line items and our ability to get operating leverage, that's why you've seen the really substantial growth we've had in FRE over a short period of time.

p. 8 · Read in context →

Why reported insurance earnings lag the economics: KKR cash-accounts assets whose return is appreciation rather than yield.

Benjamin Budish (Barclays); Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the recent trends at Global Atlantic. It looks like you are a little bit above the kind of $250 million per quarter target you've talked about, but sifting through the pieces, it's a little bit hard to tell. I think we're waiting for some data from the queue when it comes out, but it looks like perhaps the net investment spread may have narrowed a little bit. The G&A came in quite a bit lower than the last '26. Is it still sort of plus or minus $250 million? Or should we see more upside? Thank you. […] Yeah. I'll take that one. It's Rob. All good questions. Let me work through them in pieces. We continue to think that the right level to model the business is in that $250 million-plus range per quarter over the next four quarters, but keep in mind, and we talked a lot about this last quarter, is in our transition to move our book to more of an industry average on alternatives exposure, we are taking on assets that have no yield or limited yield. We are choosing to not have that show up in our P&L by cash accounting for those outcomes. That is different than many of our industry peers. In just Q4 alone, that number was in the mid-90s of accrued that's not showing up in our P&L. As I think about our run rate today, of accrued income is closer to $250 million. As you think about 2026, as we're modeling that business, we think that accrued income number can be $300 to $350 million. Over time, if we do our jobs right, that accrued income that builds and compounds will show up in cash earnings. We expect in 2027 and 2028, you're going to start to see that.

p. 10 · Read in context →

Answering the charge that Strategic Holdings is a black box: ~20 companies deleveraging into dividend payers.

Brennan Hawken (BMO); Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): Appreciate that you reiterated the $350 million expectation for this year in Strategic Holdings. Also recognizing that the earnings doubled here this year, more than doubled. Could you help us understand what will drive that? Talking with investors, there's a little bit of a view that it's a black box. There's not a ton of disclosure. So any enhanced color around what's going to drive that substantial ramp? There's a TMT bucket that's in there. Maybe could you provide a little color around what's in that bucket given some of the anxiety and agita that's out there? Thanks. […] Now what is driving it? What's driving it is we've got approximately 20 businesses now that sit in strategic holdings, all generating different levels of growth and free cash flow. Many of those investments were originated five, six, seven, eight years ago with bigger capital structures at the time. A big part of our thesis is as they delever, which they are deleveraging, they're going to be generating more free cash flow for dividends, and that is what's driving our confidence both in 2026 but especially as we look forward through 2030 and beyond.

p. 11 · Read in context →

Q3 2025 Earnings Call — Q3 2025

The call where the insurance P&L was taken apart in public — total economics, the cash-versus-mark decision, and a self-disclosed carry clawback. · Open the full transcript →

Management explains why it declined to adopt peers' mark-to-market insurance reporting, and what that choice costs the headline.

Robert Lewin (CFO): Transparently, we debated whether to change our insurance operating reporting to mark-to-market and conform to many of the industry peers, but we have concluded that it would be inconsistent with how we think about the P&L across all of KKR. We have had a focus on cash outcomes in our segment reporting since 2018 when we moved away from reporting economic net income. We think it is the easiest way to understand our business and believe that is the right decision for our insurance portfolio as well. Candidly, we like our conservative approach. We have decided to continue reporting the lower-yielding investments in our insurance segment based on cash outcomes. But to give you a sense of the embedded profitability, our insurance operating earnings would have been approximately $50 million higher in Q3 if we included the impact of marks on our investments, where a significant portion of the return is related to appreciation and not cash yield. As we continue to rotate the book, we expect the difference between our reported earnings and the earnings on a marked basis to go up in 2026, but come down over time as the portfolio matures. However, in a growing and performing business, that number will never be zero.

p. 3 · Read in context →

Bad news delivered unprompted: a carry repayment on the 2013-vintage Asia II fund, sized and reserved before anyone asked.

Robert Lewin (CFO): The one exception here relates to our second Asia private equity fund, which has underperformed. Asia II was raised 12, 13 years ago and stopped investing roughly eight years ago. As we have disclosed to our Asia II investors, we expect that fund will roughly return its cost. To be clear, our performance in Asia private equity more broadly has been a real bright spot. Our most recent funds Asia III and Asia IV are both top quartile performing funds for their vintage, with gross IRRs over 20% and differentiated DPI statistics. Asia III has already returned over 100% of its capital, and Asia IV has already returned 40%. The reason we are discussing this today is that we collected roughly $350 million of gross carry from Asia II many years ago that we now have to pay back. We will be taking a charge in the fourth quarter to do just that, reversing the compensation that was paid out when that carry was collected. To be clear, while we are recognizing this event in Q4, our accrued unrealized performance income on the balance sheet has been net of this impact for some time. The result is that we expect net realized performance income in Q4 to be lower than it otherwise would have been, and ANI per share to be about $0.18 lower. This is really a one-time charge that we've planned and reserved for that we wanted you to be aware is coming. As we sit here today, we do not see any other material clawback risk that exists across our portfolio. When you cut through it, the monetization pipeline is strong, our performance is strong, and we are taking a one-time charge for something that happened roughly 10 years ago.

p. 4 · Read in context →

The frame invoked on every call since: FRE guidance is unconditional, ANI guidance depends on the monetization window.

Robert Lewin (CFO): The final topic that I want to discuss this morning relates to our expectations for 2026. Do we still feel good about our guidance of $4.50 plus in FRE per share and $7 to $8 in after-tax ANI per share that we introduced in November 2023 and November 2021, respectively? On FRE, the answer is an unreserved yes. As you could tell from our fundraising this quarter, we have good momentum here and real line of sight to continued management fee growth. Turning to ANI. Given everything that we see and all of the momentum across KKR, we continue to feel confident in our ability to achieve our 2026 ANI guidance. A key component here will, of course, be monetization activity. Today, we have roughly $17 billion of embedded gains across the firm, that is gross unrealized carry and unrealized gains in our asset management investment portfolio and strategic holdings. That is the second highest level in our history, it's up 10% from a year ago and up over 50% from two years ago. Collectively, we've gone back with all of our business heads across all of our geographies and looked at our pipelines on a bottoms-up basis. As a result of that exercise, we feel incredibly well positioned for future monetizations. To be clear, the monetization environment today is constructive, and we would expect that to continue into 2026. However, if the monetization environment deteriorates, we may delay some of that activity. If that were to happen, we would be earning less in 2026, but would be in service of more earnings in 2027 and beyond.

p. 4 · Read in context →

Q1 2025 Earnings Call — Q1 2025

The call held four weeks into the tariff shock, where the diversification and lockup arguments were tested against a live dislocation. · Open the full transcript →

Tariff exposure quantified within a month of the announcement, by asset class and with the caveats stated.

Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): The first is the impact of tariffs on our existing portfolio. As a starting point, it is important to remember that tariffs and supply chain diversification and resilience have been front-of-mind topic for our investment, public affairs, and macro teams dating back to the global pandemic. As a result, for five-plus years now, this has been a standard topic of conversation. Taking a look at our global private equity portfolio today, this includes traditional, core, and growth. Based on our initial findings, we estimate that 90% of our AUM has limited to no first-order impact from the announced tariffs. Importantly, this figure does not include identified mitigating measures that we are actively implementing. Specifically, our core private equity portfolio and our strategic holding segment are not expected to have any material impact from tariffs. Across our infrastructure platform, the vast majority of our companies have either contractual protections that insulate KKR returns or minimal estimated exposure. Looking at our infrastructure deployment over the last five years, approximately 70% has been in Europe and in Asia. And as we look at our credit portfolio, there will be pockets of exposure. But we believe the opportunities, and we really do think this is a credit picker's market, will outweigh the downsides. While we expect there will be individual instances of direct tariff impact in parts of the portfolio, based on how we understand tariffs today, we feel well-equipped to manage these challenges and on the whole feel very good with how our portfolio is positioned.

p. 2 · Read in context →

The Global Atlantic model in one passage: longer liabilities, more alternatives, third-party sidecars, all-in ROE near 20%.

Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): Turning next to insurance, we are now a year plus into owning 100% of Global Atlantic and we are progressing well on our path to modestly evolving how we source both liabilities and assets, including raising more third-party capital, elongating our liability profile and sourcing additional alternatives. This addition of longer dated alternatives to the portfolio, where we think that we have a differentiated sourcing advantage, will drive up overall returns, while at the same time naturally reducing leverage over time. Financial performance here begins with Insurance segment operating earnings. In Q1, as you would have heard from Craig, we reported $259 million, which was in line with our expectations. Consistent with our comments last quarter, I would expect insurance operating earnings to stay in that $250 million plus or minus level during the next few quarters. This line item alone does not capture though how our model works and the overall impact of our insurance related economics. A lot of it appropriately shows up in our Asset Management segment. Firstly, management fees from our Ivy sidecar vehicles as well as strategic partnerships. This capital allows us to grow GA in a very capital efficient way, and there is more to come here. For example, Japan Post Insurance announced in Q1 their intention to expand our existing strategic partnership and make a new $1 billion to $2 billion investment here. Number two, capital markets fees, where we've just begun to scratch the surface. We see the potential to generate several hundred million of additional annual revenues over time. In 2024, that number was closer to $50 million. Finally, the management fees charged for our investment management agreement with Global Atlantic, critically even while we are in the process of shifting our strategy to emphasize longer duration and more private market assets. Our all-in pre-tax ROE of our insurance business is approaching 20%, with a clear path to 20- plus percent returns as we get all the elements of the business working well together.

p. 2 · Read in context →

Why management fees are insulated from marks: committed capital, eight-year-plus lockups, and $64bn not yet paying fees.

Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): The last theme that I want to go through before handing it off to Scott is around the durability of our model, which provides us with a significant amount of both stability and visibility. Over 90% of our capital is perpetual or committed for an average of eight years or more. Today, we have $116 billion of committed but uncalled capital. If you look at our management fees, they are largely calculated on committed or invested capital, and therefore, not influenced by marks and corresponding NAVs. Finally, we have a record amount of capital on which we're not yet earning fees, with $64 billion committed with a weighted average management fee rate of about 100 basis points. That turns on when the capital is either invested or enters its investment period. Just to put that $64 billion figure into perspective, it is up almost 50% compared to one year ago. So, we benefit from real stability of management fees and increased visibility on how they will grow.

p. 2 · Read in context →

Pressed on why the buyback isn't bigger, the CFO restates the allocation test and the historical record behind it.

Alexander Blostein (Goldman Sachs); Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): So, zooming out a little bit, the comments over the course of your prepared remarks suggested a much more resilient business, perhaps what's perceived in the market today. You talked about monetization not quite falling off the cliff, deployment, dry powder, really healthy. It sounds like you're not really changing the outlook for fundraising either. So, the question obviously is, with the stock doing what it's done over the last few months, why not step up the buyback here? I know it's a dynamic approach you guys have talked about in the past, and you're looking to generate the best return on investment capital. But if not now, when? […] Great, Alex. It's Rob. Why don't I start? We’ve been very consistent as it relates to capital allocation for some time. The most important thing for any capital allocation process is consistency. We have two goals. One is to ensure every marginal dollar of free cash flow generates the most amount of long-term earnings per share. The second goal, closely related, is increasing the quality of those earnings. Every marginal dollar of free cash flow is looked at through that lens. We've talked about four areas of using our capital base to accomplish those goals. One is share buybacks. The other three are core private equity, strategic M&A, and insurance. Share buybacks, over the past several years, have been a really important part of our capital allocation framework and use of capital. I've got every confidence that as we look forward and think about using our capital, share buybacks will continue to be a core part of how we think about capital allocation. We don't have a framework that puts a specific amount in any one bucket. To us, it’s all about taking that marginal dollar of cash flow and deriving the most amount of earnings per share across our business over a long period, with durability and resilience to that cash flow. We're going to take that same lens. I expect share buybacks, as we look forward, will continue to be a very important part of that allocation framework. It’s also worth noting that KKR senior management own roughly 30% of KKR. Any decision taken around capital structure, around capital allocation, is through that lens, highly aligned with our shareholder base. If you look historically, we’ve used our capital base to retire roughly 10% of our shares outstanding, 15% of our free float. We've done so at an average price of roughly $28 per share. We like our historical body of work and would expect to continue to find accretive ways to put that capital to work for all of our shareholders.

p. 6 · Read in context →

The industry question of the cycle — will allocations to private equity shrink? — answered: dispersion, not a shakeout.

Glenn Schorr (Evercore); Scott Nuttall (Co-Chief Executive Officer): I want to revisit the discussion on private equity. You clearly illustrated how linear deployment and investment pacing benefit your situation, particularly when considering America's 12 and the capital you've returned. The broader question is whether, during the 2006, 2007, and 2008 vintages, which had subpar industry performance, people believed private equity was finished. We raised a significant amount of money, which doubled and tripled. So, is this time different for the industry? There are more funds and assets raised, yet performance remains subpar. Will we witness a larger shakeout, considering that there wasn't enough of one in previous downturns? […] Hey, Glenn, it's Scott. It's a great question. Our expectation is that it'll probably be more about dispersion. We think you're going to have meaningful dispersion of results across private equity managers, and that will start to come through in a way that it hasn't for a very long time. We've seen a trend for a while of institutional investors in particular globally wanting to do more with fewer. They've been consolidating their relationships with people that they think can perform through a cycle and that, in a lot of cases, are global and multi-asset class. Obviously, we've benefited from that. It will be more about concentration of capital with fewer players. We think we’ll now see the benefit of what I mentioned before, we’ve learned a lot during GFC, during COVID, during Trump 1.0. We've been applying those learnings. Volatility creates opportunity. You need to have the capital to invest and the courage to invest it. We as a firm, and we talk about culture all the time, are incredibly well-connected. If nothing else, we learn, and so, hopefully that will benefit us as it comes through results. It’s going to be dispersion, not a shakeout.

p. 8 · Read in context →

The wealth thesis in plain terms, including who K-Series is for and who the Capital Group partnership is for.

Scott Nuttall (Co-Chief Executive Officer): We talked about the private wealth opportunity for a while. We do think that it is significant. A lot of institutions globally are 30% to 50% in alternatives; individual investors are low single-digits, depending on when you look at 1% or 2%. The opportunity for expanding our market is meaningful. More importantly, it doesn't make sense that if you are a teacher in Texas and you retired, you have 30-40% of your retirement funds invested in alternatives. If you are a retired dentist, you have zero. You haven't had access to what we do. With K-Series, we've been focused on hitting the accredited investor. That’s about 5% to 7% of U.S. households. We’ve launched there, and we are underway. With Capital Group, we are focused on the other 95%. We've just launched these first two products in the credit space, but what's coming is private equity, real estate, infrastructure, models, and figuring out how to access more efficiently the broader investor universe, as well as target fees.

p. 9 · Read in context →

Why insurance segment earnings sit flat while the model improves — and the stated willingness to trade near-term P&L.

Patrick Davitt (Autonomous Research); Robert Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): My question is on the insurance discussion. I think you said you expect it to stay in the 250 million range for the next few quarters, but with the ongoing portfolio repositioning, I would think there is potential for wider new investment spreads. Why is there not room for that to tick up through the year? Thanks. […] Yes, thanks a lot for the question, Patrick. There are a few different things going on. So, let me start with how we look at things, and then I'll work towards your specific question. We focus on that all-in ROE concept. Today, we are approaching that 20% level, so pretty attractive in its own right. We have a clear path to sustainably beating that level to generate 20 plus percent all-in ROEs, especially as we get all elements of the business model working together. I’d point out that we're achieving that return while we’re going through this evolution of our business model at GA, which we know will put some near-term pressure on insurance segment operating earnings for a bit of time, but with the benefit of the longer term economic profile we think we can achieve. We believe that's unquestionably the right path to take. We're always going to side for long-term economics, even at the expense of short-term P&L. […] This all starts with elongating our liabilities. In Q1, 90% of the annuities we sold had a duration of five-plus years. This time last year, that number was 65%. We’re talking about taking our exposure to alternatives up. Industry average tends to be 5%-8% alternatives exposure. Global Atlantic was 1%. In the quarter, we added roughly a billion dollars of alternatives exposure, so making progress there too. Third-party capital is a very significant part of our strategy going forward. I referenced the momentum we have there, the Japan post-strategic partnership. We're currently out-raising IB3 deal. We have a lot going on as it relates to third-party capital. Good progress across these initiatives, but to answer your question specifically, it will take a little bit of time to impact the P&L, especially the part around the alternatives book, as much of that doesn't come through in yield. Additionally, as we grow our third-party capital, those fees only turn on when the capital is invested. Again, this takes time.

p. 11 · Read in context →

Q4 and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call — Q4 2023

The landmark call: 100% ownership of Global Atlantic, the new Strategic Holdings segment and total operating earnings metric, and the three-engine model KKR still runs on. · Open the full transcript →

The call that created today's reporting: a Strategic Holdings segment, a lower fee-comp ratio, and total operating earnings.

Rob Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): Concurrent with the closing of GA, we have created a new strategic holdings segment, which you will see in our Q1 2024 earnings release. Here the segment operating earnings will be driven by cash dividends from our Core PE portfolio. […] We also revised our compensation ratios, which similarly will be reflected in our Q1 financials, delivering more FRE to our shareholders, and driving even more alignment between our compensation model and the outcomes of our clients. […] Combining these aspects, we will be introducing a new reporting framework that will better highlight our business model. This will include a new financial metric, total operating earnings, which represents our more recurring forms of income.

p. 4 · Read in context →

The three-engine framing and the 2026 targets that every subsequent call has been measured against.

Rob Lewin (Chief Financial Officer): As a reminder, we do expect these announcements to be accretive to all of our per share metrics. And together with the confidence and current visibility we have, it is what allowed us to increase our 2026 FRE per share target to $4.50-plus per share. In 2023, we generated $2.68 per share of FRE. So our expectation is for a lot of growth from here. […] Turning first to our asset management business – there remains a lot of upside here, with multiple drivers of growth. We have a lot of younger strategies that are just beginning to scale. We started 25 or so investing businesses through the past decade alone, and many are now starting to inflect. We are in asset classes and geographies with massive end markets – Asia, infrastructure including climate, and credit are all great examples. And as a reminder, we only want to be competing in areas with large addressable markets and where we have conviction that we can be a top-three player. We are in the early days of tapping into the private wealth end market. We've had early success in our K-Series suite of products, with a tremendous amount of opportunity that is still in front of us. With these growth avenues, along with our strong track record, talent, and the trust that we've built with our clients, we feel that we could double our asset management business from here. And that's without starting anything new. […] And finally, number three, strategic holdings, where our opportunity is highly differentiated. This segment leverages all of our people, capabilities, and our collaborative culture. As a result, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on what we believe is a huge, addressable market. And that's in addition to the current visibility we already have to drive net dividends in this segment of $300- plus million by 2026, and $600-plus million by 2028.

p. 5 · Read in context →

More calls

Q2 2025 Earnings Call — Q2 2025 · 13 pages · Go here for the first quarter with the Americas XIV flagship fee stream switched on, and the resulting step-up in management fee and FRE margin math. · Open →

Q4 and Full Year 2024 Earnings Call — Q4 2024 · 14 pages · The first full year reported under the new three-segment structure, useful as the clean baseline for the 2026 targets. · Open →

Q3 2024 Earnings Call — Q3 2024 · 16 pages · Read this for the fundraising super-cycle framing and the quarter FRE first passed $1bn, alongside the durable-earnings share of pre-tax profit. · Open →

Q2 2024 Earnings Call — Q2 2024 · 14 pages · The first call after S&P 500 inclusion and the April Investor Day; management restates the full 2026 guidance set and the 2030 Strategic Holdings ambition. · Open →

Q1 2024 Earnings Call — Q1 2024 · 8 pages · The first results reported on the new basis, with the Strategic Holdings portfolio described company-by-company and the 2026/2028/2030 dividend ladder laid out. · Open →

Q4 and Full Year 2021 Earnings Call — Q4 2021 · 28 pages · The pre-restructuring firm at its scaling peak — the first full year with Global Atlantic consolidated, AUM up 87%, management fees up 44%, distributable earnings more than doubled. · Open →

---

KKR & Co. Inc.'s annual reports contain management's most considered account of the business. These are the sections, passages and visual pages worth opening in the originals preserved in Sources.

KKR & Co. Inc. — FY2025 Annual Report (Form 10-K) — FY2025

The most recent full account of the firm: three segments, $744bn of AUM, and the valuation and clawback mechanics behind the earnings. · Open the full document →

Business Segments — p. 8 · Read the full section →

Management's own framing of the firm: three reporting segments, 36 offices, $744bn of AUM, and why the pieces fit together.

Opening description of the firm and the three-segment business model.

KKR is a leading global investment firm that offers alternative asset management as well as capital markets and insurance solutions. We aim to generate attractive investment returns by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and supporting growth in our portfolio companies and communities. […] Founded in 1976, KKR pioneered the leveraged buyout strategy and has been a leader of the private equity industry for five decades. […] Our business model of (i) Asset Management, (ii) Insurance, and (iii) Strategic Holdings corresponds to our three reporting segments. […] Importantly, these pieces were built to leverage our core strengths as a firm: investing acumen, capital allocation expertise and our collaborative culture.

p. 8 · Read in context →

Investment Vehicle Structures, Fee Arrangements and Carried Interest — p. 15 · Read the full section →

The revenue mechanics in management's words: management fees, fee-related performance revenues, carry rates, hurdles and netting holes.

Insurance — p. 18 · Read the full section →

Global Atlantic is now $219bn of the $744bn AUM and a wholly owned balance sheet; this section explains what it sells and to whom.

What Global Atlantic is, and the 2021-2024 path from 60% to full ownership.

Our insurance business operates under the Global Atlantic brand. Global Atlantic is a leading retirement and life insurance company, with an over 20-year track record of providing a broad suite of protection, legacy, and savings products to customers and reinsurance solutions to clients across individual and institutional markets. […] KKR acquired a majority controlling interest in Global Atlantic on February 1, 2021 (approximately 60%), and acquired the remainder of Global Atlantic on January 2, 2024, increasing our ownership to 100%.

p. 18 · Read in context →

Strategic Holdings — p. 21 · Read the full section →

The segment created in Q1 2024: 19 wholly held operating companies whose dividends KKR now reports as a third earnings stream.

Definition, expected income (dividends) and the fee boundary against the Asset Management segment.

Our Strategic Holdings segment, which we started reporting in the first quarter of 2024, acquires and manages interests in operating companies that are owned by the firm. Today, those companies primarily consist of our participation in our core private equity strategy. We have acquired, and in the future we expect to continue to acquire, other long-term assets outside of, and in addition to, our participation in our core private equity strategy. Strategic Holdings is not limited to acquiring companies in specific industries. We intend to hold the companies in our Strategic Holdings segment over a longer period of time, and we believe most of these companies generally have a lower risk profile than would be typical for an investment through our traditional private equity strategy. We currently expect our Strategic Holdings segment primarily to generate income from the receipt of dividends from our ownership stakes in these businesses and, upon the sale of any ownership stake, realized investment income from such sale. As of December 31, 2025, our Strategic Holdings segment consisted of ou ownership stakes in 19 companies. […] The fees and carried interest paid by the third party investors in our core private equity funds continue to be reported in our Asset Management segment and are not reported in our Strategic Holdings segment.

p. 21 · Read in context →

The agreements governing our carry-paying funds have in the past and may in the future give rise to a contingent obligation that requires us to return or contribute significant cash amounts to our funds and fund investors. — p. 40 · Read the full section →

Clawback is not hypothetical here: KKR discloses a realized carried interest repayment in Q4 2025 on Asian Fund II.

The clawback obligation, stated plainly.

We have in the past and may in the future be required to return carried interest that we have received from investment funds. The partnership documents governing our carry-paying funds across our asset classes include what are often called “clawback” provisions.

p. 40 · Read in context →

Where it bites: employee carry pool, available cash, fundraising - and a repayment already made.

We would continue to be subject to such obligation even if carry has been distributed to current or former employees through our carry pool. If such current or forme employees do not satisfy their share of any clawback obligation, we will be responsible for funding the entire obligation and may need to seek other sources of liquidity to fund such an obligation. […] To the extent one or more obligations were to occur for any one or more of our carry-paying funds, we might not have available cash to satisfy such obligation once it is realized, putting us in breach of the fund’s governing agreements and potentially resulting in a material adverse impact on our ability to raise additional or successor funds in the future. […] including information about realized carried interest repayment in the fourth quarter 2025 relating to our Asian Fund II.

p. 41 · Read in context →

The portion of our AUM we refer to as perpetual capital is not permanent and is subject to change. — p. 43 · Read the full section →

Perpetual capital carries the growth story; management spells out how quickly it can leave, including from the insurance book.

What counts as perpetual capital, and the withdrawal, redemption and surrender routes out of it.

We refer to a significant portion of our AUM as perpetual capital, because this AUM has an indefinite term with no predetermined requirement to return invested capital to investors upon the realization of investments. This AUM includes the capital of our evergreen products, which include investment vehicles registered under the Investment Company Act, certain unregistered investment vehicles like our K-Series offered to individual investors, and listed companies like KREF and Crescent Energy, as well as the capital of our insurance companies. However, in addition to fluctuations based on the valuations of the underlying investments of the AUM, this capital is subject to material reduction, including through withdrawals, redemptions, periodic payments such as dividends or required distributions, and termination of investment advisory agreements, and these reductions may occur with minimal notice. […] Unless the inflows from writing new insurance policies and entering into new reinsurance transactions exceeds outflows to pay contractual obligations, or the valuation of the assets backing our insurance liabilities increases in excess of any expected appreciation, our permanent capital from our insurance subsidiaries and sponsored insurers would be reduced.

p. 43 · Read in context →

Regulations impacting the insurance industry and insurance companies owned by alternative asset managers may adversely affect our business. — p. 51 · Read the full section →

The regulatory question aimed squarely at KKR's model - an alternative manager running an insurer's investment portfolio.

NAIC scrutiny of affiliated investments and ratings, plus possible designation as an internationally active group.

As part of their efforts to address potential risks stemming from an insurance company’s relationship with alternative asset managers that may impact the insurance company’s risk profile, regulators have increased their scrutiny of certain structured investments held by insurance companies, the appropriateness of investment ratings and potential conflicts of interest (including affiliated investments), and potential misalignment of incentives. This growing scrutiny may increase the risk of regulatory actions against our insurance business and could result in new or amended regulations that limit our ability as an investment adviser, or make it more burdensome or costly, to enter into or amend existing investment management agreements with insurance companies and thereby grow our insurance strategy. […] Additionally, the group-wide supervisor for our insurance business is the Indiana Department of Insurance. The Indiana Department of Insurance has informed us that it will be part of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors’ Global Monitoring Exercise, a risk assessment framework to monitor key risks and trends […] At this time, we cannot accurately predict whether we will be named or designated as an IAIG or the impact, if any, on us.

p. 52 · Read in context →

Analysis of Segment Operating Results — p. 98 · Read the full section →

The fee line explained fund by fund - which vehicles switched on, which stepped down to invested capital, what was retroactive.

Drivers of the $639m increase in management fees, by business line.

The increase in Private Equity management fees was primarily attributable to (i) management fees commencing at North America Fund XIV in the second quarter of 2025 and (ii) management fees earned on new capital raised over the past twelve months at our private equity K-Series vehicles, net of certain revenue sharing arrangements. The increase was partially offset by (i) a lower level of management fees earned from Ascendant (our U.S. middle market traditional private equity fund) due to management fees earned on new capital raised in 2024 that were retroactive to the start of the fund’s investment period and no such retroactive fees were earned in the current year, (ii) a decrease in management fees earned from North America Fund XIII as a result of entering its post-investment period in the second quarter of 2025, and now paying fees based on invested capital rather than committed capital, and (iii) no management fees earned from Asian Fund II in the current period due to the termination of management fees in the fourth quarter of 2024. […] The increase in Real Assets management fees was primarily attributable to (i) management fees commencing at Globa Infrastructure Investors V in the third quarter of 2024, (ii) management fees earned on new capital raised over the past twelve months at our infrastructure K-Series vehicles, net of certain revenue sharing arrangements, and (iii) a higher level of management fees earned from Global Atlantic primarily due to the growth in assets from inflows. The increase was partially offset by a decrease in management fees earned from Global Infrastructure Investors III and Asia Pacific Infrastructure Investors due to a decrease in invested capital during the current year.

p. 99 · Read in context →

Fair Value Measurements — p. 131 · Read the full section →

For an alternative manager the valuation policy is the business model: Level III marks set carried interest and investment income.

Management's own caution on the uncertainty in Level III valuations.

Our investments and financial instruments are impacted by various economic conditions and events outside of our control that are difficult to quantify or predict, which may have a significant impact on the valuation of our investments and, therefore, on the carried interest and investment income we realize. […] There is inherent uncertainty involved in the valuation of Level III investments, and there is no assurance that, upon liquidation, KKR will realize the values reflected in our valuations. Our valuations may differ significantly from the values that would have been used had an active market for the investments existed, and it is reasonably possible that the difference could be material.

p. 131 · Read in context →

KKR & Co. Inc. — FY2023 Annual Report (Form 10-K) — FY2023

Included for one section only: the two-segment firm as management described it before Strategic Holdings was carved out in 2024. · Open the full document →

Our Business — p. 14 · Read the full section →

The last 10-K before Strategic Holdings existed: two segments, and perpetual capital framed as a strength rather than a risk.

More annual reports

KKR & Co. Inc. — FY2024 Annual Report (Form 10-K) — FY2024 · 558 pages · First 10-K to report Strategic Holdings as a segment and the first full year owning 100% of Global Atlantic. · Open →

KKR & Co. Inc. — FY2022 Annual Report (Form 10-K) — FY2022 · 598 pages · The down-market year: fundraising, realizations and carry in a period when exits largely stopped. · Open →

KKR & Co. Inc. — FY2021 Annual Report (Form 10-K) — FY2021 · 586 pages · The year the insurance business arrived: first report consolidating Global Atlantic after the February 2021 acquisition. · Open →

---

Source: S&P Capital IQ consensus via Xpressfeed · Generated 2026-07-29.

The forward tape was marked down and has since steadied: FY2027 normalized EPS consensus sits at $7.35, down 9.6% from six months ago, and FY2028 at $8.60, down 9.3%, yet both are flat to marginally higher over the last 30 days. KKR kept beating through the markdown, topping normalized EPS consensus in seven of the last eight quarters and clearing both lines by more than 10% in the March 2026 quarter. What survived the cuts is still a steep curve: consensus carries FY2027 revenue up 18.8% and EPS up 20.2%. The depth behind that curve is uneven, with 22 analysts on the EPS line and six on revenue.

FY2027 EPS consensus is down 9.6% over six months but has stopped falling in the last 30 days

Currency: USD · Scale: money in millions, absolute · Point-in-time consensus; Δ90d is Now versus 90d.

Metric	FY	180d	90d	30d	Now	Δ90d
EPS (normalized)	FY2027	$8.13	$7.65	$7.40	$7.35	-3.9%
EPS (normalized)	FY2028	$9.48	$8.57	$8.59	$8.60	+0.3%
Revenue	FY2027	$12.71bn	$12.30bn	$12.22bn	$12.28bn	-0.1%
Revenue	FY2028	$15.08bn	$13.76bn	$13.70bn	$13.90bn	+1.0%

Seven EPS beats in eight quarters, and the latest print cleared both lines by more than 10%

Current sequences by metric: Revenue: 1 consecutive beat; EPS (normalized): 1 consecutive beat.

Currency: USD · Scale: money in millions, absolute · Consensus is captured before each actual first became effective.

Quarter	Metric	Consensus	Actual	Surprise	Outcome
Q1 FY2026	Revenue	$2.11bn	$2.35bn	+11.2%	Beat
Q1 FY2026	EPS (normalized)	$1.26	$1.39	+10.3%	Beat
Q4 FY2025	Revenue	$1.78bn	$1.64bn	-8.4%	Miss
Q4 FY2025	EPS (normalized)	$1.14	$1.12	-1.6%	Miss
Q3 FY2025	Revenue	$2.26bn	$2.40bn	+6.3%	Beat
Q3 FY2025	EPS (normalized)	$1.30	$1.41	+8.6%	Beat
Q2 FY2025	Revenue	$1.84bn	$1.86bn	+0.8%	Beat
Q2 FY2025	EPS (normalized)	$1.14	$1.18	+3.6%	Beat
Q1 FY2025	Revenue	$1.71bn	$1.77bn	+3.3%	Beat
Q1 FY2025	EPS (normalized)	$1.13	$1.15	+1.7%	Beat
Q4 FY2024	Revenue	$1.96bn	$2.04bn	+4.0%	Beat
Q4 FY2024	EPS (normalized)	$1.27	$1.32	+3.7%	Beat
Q3 FY2024	Revenue	$1.75bn	$1.96bn	+12.3%	Beat
Q3 FY2024	EPS (normalized)	$1.20	$1.38	+15.4%	Beat
Q2 FY2024	Revenue	$1.62bn	$1.73bn	+7.0%	Beat
Q2 FY2024	EPS (normalized)	$1.06	$1.09	+2.4%	Beat

Even after the cuts, consensus carries FY2027 revenue up 18.8% and EPS up 20.2%

Growth decelerates modestly into FY2028 — revenue +13.2%, EPS +17.0% — while consensus ROE steps up in each of the three years. The EBITDA row rests on one to two analysts and should be read as indicative rather than as a street view.

Currency: USD · Scale: money in millions, absolute · YoY uses the prior fiscal year from the feed; analyst count and range use the first displayed period.

Metric	FY2026E	FY2027E	FY2028E	YoY	Analysts	Low / high
Revenue	$10.34bn	$12.28bn	$13.90bn	+35.0%	6	$9.74bn / $10.89bn
EBITDA	$7.45bn	$9.02bn	$12.09bn	+25.0%	2	$6.55bn / $8.35bn
EPS (normalized)	$6.12	$7.35	$8.60	+25.6%	22	$5.85 / $6.35
ROE	13.3%	13.8%	14.9%	+3.7pt	—	—

Where the street disagrees

The FY2027 EPS range is about 15% of the mean on a 22-analyst line, so the dispersion is not a small-sample artifact. FY2027 revenue is slightly wider in percentage terms but rests on six analysts, and the FY2028 revenue range on three is closer to a sampling of models than a consensus.

Currency: USD · Scale: money in millions, absolute · Spread/mean is absolute high-low divided by absolute mean.

Metric	Period	Mean	Low–high	Spread/mean	Analysts
EPS (normalized)	FY2027E	$7.35	$6.75–$7.82	14.6%	22
Revenue	FY2027E	$12.28bn	$11.37bn–$13.40bn	16.5%	6
EPS (normalized)	FY2028E	$8.60	$7.76–$9.20	16.7%	10
Revenue	FY2028E	$13.90bn	$13.02bn–$14.53bn	10.9%	3

Coverage caution: this is an EPS consensus, not a full-model consensus

Normalized EPS carries 22 analysts in FY2026 and FY2027, but 10 in FY2028 and 2 in FY2029. Revenue has 6 analysts in FY2027 and 3 in FY2028, FY2028 EBITDA has 1, and the GAAP net income and EPS lines carry 1-2 throughout, with the FY2025 GAAP net income mean landing far from the reported actual. Treat anything outside the normalized EPS row as a small sample.

---

Visible Alpha broker models via S&P Xpressfeed · 16 brokers · 366 line items · freshest revision 2026-07-21.

The street models KKR as an annuity with a cyclical option attached. Fee-related earnings compound in the mid-to-high teens through FY-2028 on a margin that widens in every modeled year, and the 16-broker panel barely disagrees about it. The disagreement, and the FY-2026 inflection, sits in the monetization lines: realized performance income, realized investment income and capital markets fees. Fee rates stay flat across the horizon, so the fee build is a volume story rather than a pricing one.

Fee-related earnings are the modeled engine: +17% in FY-2027 on a margin that keeps widening

The build is ordinary in the best sense: management fees compound, fee-related compensation grows more slowly, and the margin grinds higher in every modeled year. Fee-related earnings per adjusted share runs $4.83 in FY-2026 to $6.37 in FY-2028. None of this sequence depends on markets cooperating.

Line	FY-2025A	FY-2026E	FY-2027E	FY-2028E	YoY	Brokers
Fee revenue	—	—	—	—	—	—
Management fees	$4.06bn	$4.87bn	$5.52bn	$6.27bn	+19.9%	16
Transaction and monitoring fees net	$1.13bn	$1.11bn	$1.40bn	$1.61bn	-2.0%	16
Fee-related performance revenues	$183.61m	$408.92m	$496.34m	$574.79m	+122.7%	16
Total fee-related revenue	$5.38bn	$6.39bn	$7.42bn	$8.45bn	+18.8%	16
Costs	—	—	—	—	—	—
Fee-related compensation	$940.16m	$1.12bn	$1.29bn	$1.47bn	+19.1%	16
Earnings	—	—	—	—	—	—
Fee-related earnings	$3.72bn	$4.44bn	$5.21bn	$5.97bn	+19.2%	16
Fee-related earnings margin(%)	69.2%	69.5%	70.2%	70.6%	+0.2pt	16
Fee-related earnings per adjusted share($)	$4.14	$4.83	$5.57	$6.37	+16.7%	16

The inflection is monetization: realized performance income jumps 68% in FY-2026, and private equity supplies it

Private equity carries the recovery, up 77% in FY-2026, while credit and real assets carry stays small. Realized performance income compensation absorbs roughly seven-tenths of the gross line in every modeled year, so the net figure is the one that matters. Capital markets fees are flat in FY-2026 before turning up 26% in FY-2027.

Line	FY-2025A	FY-2026E	FY-2027E	FY-2028E	YoY	Brokers
Realized carry	—	—	—	—	—	—
Realized performance income	$1.97bn	$3.32bn	$3.91bn	$4.23bn	+68.1%	16
Realized performance income - Private equity	$1.47bn	$2.60bn	$2.98bn	$3.35bn	+76.9%	14
Realized performance income - Real assets	$281.76m	$410.60m	$601.86m	$614.52m	+45.7%	14
Realized performance income - Credit and Liquid Strategies	$260.71m	$303.10m	$355.26m	$358.25m	+16.3%	14
Net to KKR	—	—	—	—	—	—
Realized performance income compensation	$1.42bn	$2.36bn	$2.78bn	$3.00bn	+66.3%	16
Net realized performance income	$553.20m	$955.61m	$1.13bn	$1.23bn	+72.7%	16
Other realized	—	—	—	—	—	—
Realized investment income	$433.03m	$633.00m	$882.75m	$1.11bn	+46.2%	14
Transaction fees - Capital markets	$953.28m	$940.11m	$1.19bn	$1.40bn	-1.4%	15

Brokers agree on the annuity and split on the cash-out

The same 16-broker panel sits within a few percent on FY-2027 fee-related earnings; the divergence is concentrated in the lines below. Realized investment income is the widest, its top of range close to three times the bottom, and real assets carry is skewed by a single high estimate.

Line	Period	Median	Q1–Q3	Min–max	Brokers
Realized investment income	FY-2027E	$775.61m	$680.22m–$989.51m	$602.32m–$1.76bn	14
Realized performance income - Real assets	FY-2027E	$523.46m	$463.33m–$597.19m	$376.70m–$1.58bn	14
Fee-related performance revenues	FY-2027E	$523.75m	$447.19m–$575.61m	$270.00m–$701.89m	16
Realized performance income - Private equity	FY-2027E	$2.98bn	$2.63bn–$3.28bn	$2.24bn–$4.01bn	14
Transaction fees - Capital markets	FY-2027E	$1.18bn	$1.10bn–$1.29bn	$917.05m–$1.36bn	15

Growth is volume, not price: fee rates hold at 0.76% while fee-paying AUM compounds

Credit and Liquid Strategies contributes the largest fee-paying inflows in every modeled year. Private equity inflows fall 30% in FY-2026 before recovering 26% in FY-2027, which reads as fundraising cadence rather than a structural break. Blended and segment fee rates are essentially unchanged across the horizon.

Line	FY-2025A	FY-2026E	FY-2027E	FY-2028E	YoY	Brokers
Fee-paying inflows	—	—	—	—	—	—
Inflows - FPAUM - Credit and Liquid Strategies	$60.30bn	$52.61bn	$63.54bn	$75.46bn	-12.7%	15
Inflows - FPAUM - Private equity	$35.50bn	$24.74bn	$31.15bn	$28.72bn	-30.3%	15
Inflows - FPAUM - Real assets	$29.54bn	$31.95bn	$33.79bn	$42.88bn	+8.2%	15
Inflows - FPAUM	$125.68bn	$109.54bn	$129.04bn	$147.06bn	-12.8%	13
Outflows & balance	—	—	—	—	—	—
Outflows - FPAUM	$-49.43bn	$-55.44bn	$-56.72bn	$-67.34bn	-12.2%	13
End of period - FPAUM	$601.93bn	$675.08bn	$763.59bn	$866.93bn	+12.2%	14
Fee rates	—	—	—	—	—	—
Total management fee margin(%)	0.7%	0.8%	0.8%	0.8%	+0.0pt	14
Management fee margin - Credit and Liquid Strategies(%)	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	+0.0pt	15
Management fees rate - Private equity(%)	1.1%	1.2%	1.2%	1.2%	+0.0pt	15
Management fees rate - Real assets(%)	0.8%	0.9%	0.9%	0.9%	+0.0pt	15

Global Atlantic is modeled to trough in FY-2026, not to break

Global Atlantic ROAE is modeled at 9.08% in FY-2026, below FY-2025's 11.38%, then recovers to 10.24% in FY-2027 and 11.62% in FY-2028. Insurance operating earnings trace the same path, dipping this year before two years of growth, while modeled Global Atlantic book value rises throughout. Brokers are treating this as a returns reset on a growing book, not a contraction.

FY-2028 rests on roughly half the panel that covers FY-2026 and FY-2027

Most FY-2026 and FY-2027 lines carry 14 to 16 brokers; the FY-2028 column typically falls to 7 or 8, and segment carry lines to 5 or 6. Read the final year as a smaller sample rather than a firmer view. Vintage is not the issue here: the consensus file is dated 2026-07-23 and the lines used above were revised 2026-07-21.

Headline P&L consensus, momentum and beat/miss live in the CapIQ tab.

---

Source: S&P Capital IQ transcripts via Xpressfeed · latest indexed call 2026-05-05 · generated 2026-07-29.

Latest call digest

KKR & Co. Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T14:00:00

Q1 2026 call, May 5, 2026. Prepared remarks led with results near firm records — fee-related earnings of $1.13 per share, up 23% year-over-year, total operating earnings of $1.47 and adjusted net income of $1.39 — alongside $28 billion of new capital, the $23 billion final close of North America XIV, the closing of the Arctos acquisition, and $317 million of stock repurchased or retired through May 1 at an average price of approximately $91.

The material change came late in the CFO's script rather than in Q&A. Management stepped back from the 2026 adjusted net income target, saying that if you were handicapping the $7-plus figure, it is more likely KKR lands below it. The framing offered was timing rather than value: gross monetization revenue was up more than 50% year-over-year in the quarter, and exits since March 31 plus signed transactions represent over $1.2 billion of gross monetization revenue, which management called the largest forward figure discussed on a call in its history.

Q&A pushed on two things the prepared remarks handled lightly. First, attribution — Glenn Schorr and Brennan Hawken each asked what specifically slipped, and the answers stayed at the level of degree, process and market backdrop rather than naming assets or sectors. Second, AI: analysts from Wolfe Research, Morgan Stanley and Autonomous Research asked how disintermediation risk has been underwritten and whether the benefit can be quantified. The answers gave exposure percentages (software around 7% of AUM, around 15% within private equity) and described process, but offered no KPIs and no quantified uplift. It was also only under questioning that management disclosed software marks largely declined in the quarter despite healthy revenue and EBITDA growth.

Management pre-empted the private credit debate with added pages in the earnings release, sizing direct lending at $39 billion or 5% of AUM and the private BDC at around $3 billion or 0.4% of AUM. One forward caution was new: after $4 billion of K-Series inflows against roughly $250 million of redemptions, management said it expects a slowdown in Q2.

Participant coverage from the latest call.

Group	Participants	Count
Management	Operator; Craig Larson — Partner & Head of Investor Relations, KKR & Co. Inc.; Robert Lewin — Chief Financial Officer, KKR & Co. Inc.; Scott Nuttall — Co-CEO & Director, KKR & Co. Inc.	4
Analysts	Craig Siegenthaler — MD & Head of the North American Asset Managers, Brokers & Exchanges Team, BofA Securities, Research Division; Glenn Schorr — Senior MD & Senior Research Analyst, Evercore ISI Institutional Equities, Research Division; Alexander Blostein — Lead Capital Markets Analyst, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division; Bart Dziarski — Analyst, RBC Capital Markets, Research Division; Steven Chubak — Director of Equity Research, Wolfe Research, LLC; William Katz — Senior Analyst, TD Cowen, Research Division; Michael Brown — Managing Director, UBS Investment Bank, Research Division; Michael Cyprys — Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst, Morgan Stanley, Research Division; Brian Mckenna — Director & Equity Research Analyst, Citizens JMP Securities, LLC, Research Division; Brennan Hawken — Analyst, BMO Capital Markets Equity Research; Daniel Fannon — Senior Equity Research Analyst, Jefferies LLC, Research Division; Arnaud Giblat — MD & Research Analyst, BNP Paribas, Research Division; Crispin Love — Director & Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler & Co., Research Division; Patrick Davitt	14

Curated latest-call exchanges; one row per analyst topic.

Analyst	Firm	Topic	What changed in Q&A
Glenn Schorr	Evercore ISI	Attribution of the 2026 ANI shortfall	Asked what changed and which parts of the portfolio the market will not absorb, given record embedded gains. The reply reframed it as a matter of degree and pointed back to the forward monetization guide; no asset- or sector-level attribution was given.
Brennan Hawken	BMO Capital Markets	LP reaction to delayed realizations	Followed Schorr, asking whether further delay is straining LP relationships. Management separated the two, citing the North America fund's final close and its record of returning more than it called in the U.S. private equity business in 9 of the last 10 years.
Steven Chubak	Wolfe Research	AI disintermediation risk in Strategic Holdings	Asked for KPIs to handicap AI risk in the business services concentration. The answer gave AUM exposure percentages and described the diligence and value-creation approach, and disclosed that software marks largely declined in the quarter, but no KPIs were provided.
Craig Siegenthaler	BofA Securities	Global Atlantic competition and ROE	Opened the call on annuity competition. Management conceded competition on liabilities is very high and spreads are as tight as they have been in a long time, and said it pulled back on origination in Q1; it pointed to $6 billion of dry powder equity as the offset.
William Katz	TD Cowen	Normalized insurance ROE and timeline	Asked directly for a normalized ROE level and a timeline. The answer gave a mark-adjusted run rate and noted the quarter missed its targeted mark return, then referred to the disclosure page; neither a normalized ROE nor a timeline was given.
Daniel Fannon	Jefferies	Private wealth after private credit vehicle stress	Asked whether the noise in private credit vehicles reshapes the retail lineup and the Capital Group roadmap. Management sized K-Series at 12% of trailing-12-month fundraising and said its view of the long-term path is unchanged, while conceding media attention will likely slow flows for a period.
Crispin Love	Piper Sandler	Institutional appetite for direct lending	Asked how institutional behaviour has shifted against the retail redemption headlines. Management said institutions had drifted toward asset-based finance over the prior 12 to 24 months and have re-engaged on direct lending in recent weeks on better spreads, fees, terms and leverage.
Patrick Davitt	Autonomous Research	AI exposure in the India portfolio	Asked whether the India book has been scrubbed for outsourcing disintermediation. Management said it has been scrubbed with no elevated concern, and that the firm is not exposed to the sharp decline it observes in Indian sector hiring; no exposure figure was disclosed.
Michael Cyprys	Morgan Stanley	Quantifying AI revenue uplift versus cost savings	Asked for a split and a quantification of AI benefit in the portfolio. Management said an EBITDA uplift is being seen broadly but declined to quantify, saying guideposts would come at some later point.
Michael Brown	UBS Investment Bank	Arctos fee profile and wealth roadmap	Asked for the fee rate on the $10 billion of fee-paying AUM. Management declined to disclose Arctos-specific financials, said terms generally resemble KKR closed-end funds, and that results will sit inside the private equity line for the foreseeable future.

Theme tracker

Themes are curator-classified across supplied calls.

Theme	Status	Quarters mentioned	Read-through
Linear deployment and portfolio construction as the answer to 2021-vintage criticism	persisted	Q2 2023, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	This is the firm's single most repeated defence, and it has stayed word-for-word consistent across nine calls. It has also proven load-bearing: management uses it to explain outperformance on monetizations, on fundraising, and most recently on AI exposure, arguing the assets it did not want were sold years ago. When one argument is asked to carry that many different questions, it is worth watching whether it keeps being validated by realized outcomes.
Asset-based finance as the credit growth engine	persisted	Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Present on every call in the index, with disclosed platform AUM rising from $45 billion in Q2 2023 to over $90 billion by Q1 2026. Its role in the story has changed: it started as an under-appreciated adjacency and by Q1 2026 is used as the reason credit fundraising held up while direct lending sentiment deteriorated.
Private wealth build-out (K-Series, then Capital Group)	persisted	Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Disclosed K-Series AUM moves from $2.4 billion a year before Q4 2023 to over $38 billion at 3/31/26. The commentary has been consistently framed around long-horizon product quality rather than near-term flows, which makes the Q1 2026 admission that a Q2 slowdown is expected the first explicit forward caution in the sequence.
Reframing how insurance economics are measured	persisted	Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	The measuring stick has moved three times: a 14% to 15% pretax segment ROE through 2024, then an all-in ROE approaching 20% during 2025, then a total-economics disclosure page plus a cash-versus-accrued adjustment from Q3 2025. Each step is defensible on its own and each has moved attention away from the reported segment line. Analysts have asked for a normalized ROE in several of these quarters without getting a number.
Analyst focus on capital markets revenue trajectory	dropped	Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025	For nine calls this drew direct questions about run rate and the path back above the 2021 revenue level. It drew none on the Q4 2025 or Q1 2026 calls, where reported capital markets fees were $225 million and $224 million. The likeliest reading is that the line has stabilised and stopped being the swing factor, not that it deteriorated.
Real estate equity bottoming and leaning in	dropped	Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024	Management repeatedly argued real estate values had bottomed and that it was deploying against that view. The topic effectively disappears from Q1 2025 onward; the only later mention is a Q4 2025 question about real estate weighting inside the Global Atlantic portfolio, framed around yield and mix rather than the cycle call. The original call has not been revisited or scored on these calls.
Flagship fundraising super-cycle timing	dropped	Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025	A standing analyst question for seven calls: when do the flagships launch, close and turn on. It fades once North America XIV closed at $23 billion; by Q1 2026 an analyst frames the flagships as already in the run rate and asks instead about what replaces them. This is a topic resolving, not a topic being avoided.
AI as both underwriting risk and investment opportunity	emerged	Q4 2024, Q2 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	It enters in Q4 2024 as a narrow DeepSeek question about data centre demand, is a forward-looking curiosity in Q2 2025, and by Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 is the dominant Q&A theme, asked from the disintermediation side rather than the demand side. Management's disclosure has stayed at the exposure-percentage level throughout; requests for KPIs and for quantified uplift were both declined on the latest call.
Private credit stress and direct lending redemptions	emerged	Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Management raised it unprompted at the end of the Q3 2025 call to deny exposure to specific troubled names, and by Q1 2026 had added earnings-release pages sizing direct lending at 5% of AUM and the private BDC at 0.4%. The pattern of pre-empting rather than waiting to be asked is itself the signal here.
Secondaries and GP solutions	emerged	Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q4 2025, Q1 2026	Management said in Q1 2024 that secondaries was not a need-to-have and in Q2 2024 that it was not front and centre, then in Q4 2025 announced Arctos and a new KKR Solutions vertical targeting $100-plus billion of AUM. Management's own explanation is that it waited for the right partner rather than changing its view of the asset class.

Guidance ledger

Quotes, calls, and speakers are source-verified; outcomes are curator-classified.

Verbatim guidance	Call	Speaker	Curator outcome	Outcome note
“$300 billion-plus of new capital raised over the course of 2024 through 2026”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q2 2024 Earnings Call, Jul 31, 2024 · 2024-07-31T14:00:00	Robert Lewin	pending	Reiterated repeatedly since. On the Q4 2025 call management said over $240 billion had been raised, or over 80% of the target, and on the Q1 2026 call said it continues to feel very confident it can exceed the fundraising target. The 2024-2026 window is not closed within the supplied call history.
“by 2026, $4.50-plus per share of FRE, $7-plus per share of total operating earnings, and between $7 and $8 of adjusted net income per share”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q2 2024 Earnings Call, Jul 31, 2024 · 2024-07-31T14:00:00	Robert Lewin	pending	The three metrics have diverged. FRE per share has been reaffirmed and management expects to exceed it. The total operating earnings target was explicitly de-emphasised on the Q3 2025 call as less relevant given the insurance cash-accounting choice. The ANI target was guided below on the Q1 2026 call.
“we've got a pretty good amount of visibility into Q4 right now, so call it plus or minus $500 million of monetization-related revenue”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q3 2024 Earnings Call, Oct 24, 2024 · 2024-10-24T14:00:00	Robert Lewin	kept	The Q4 2024 call reported realized performance income of $676 million and realized investment income of $110 million, for total monetization activity of $786 million.
“We do see our monetizations up in 2025 relative to 2024”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q4 2024 Earnings Call, Feb 04, 2025 · 2025-02-04T15:00:00	Robert Lewin	kept	The Q4 2025 call reported $2.7 billion of gross monetization activity for 2025 excluding the carried interest repayment obligation, with gross realized carried interest up approximately 30% year-on-year.
“we are increasing our guidance for Strategic Holdings operating earnings that we introduced roughly a year ago by $50 million in 2026 to $350-plus million”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q4 2024 Earnings Call, Feb 04, 2025 · 2025-02-04T15:00:00	Robert Lewin	pending	Reaffirmed on every subsequent call. Q1 2026 reported $48 million for the quarter with management saying it continues to track toward the $350-plus million figure and that earnings will be back-end weighted over the year.
“Of that $800-plus million, we expect at least $250 million to be generated in Q2.”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q1 2025 Earnings Call, May 01, 2025 · 2025-05-01T13:00:00	Robert Lewin	kept	The Q2 2025 call reported realized performance income of $419 million and realized investment income of $154 million.
“I would expect insurance operating earnings to stay in that $250 million plus or minus level during the next few quarters.”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q1 2025 Earnings Call, May 01, 2025 · 2025-05-01T13:00:00	Robert Lewin	kept	Reported insurance segment operating earnings were $278 million in Q2 2025, $305 million in Q3 2025 including a $41 million actuarial benefit, and $268 million in Q4 2025 — at or modestly above the guided level in each quarter.
“We have direct line of sight to north of $800 million of monetization-related revenue, the vast majority of which will be performance income.”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q2 2025 Earnings Call, Jul 31, 2025 · 2025-07-31T13:00:00	Robert Lewin	kept	The Q3 2025 call reported realized performance and investment income of $935 million within Asset Management plus $70 million of net realized investment income in Strategic Holdings.
“we expect net realized performance income in Q4 to be lower than it otherwise would have been, and ANI per share to be about $0.18 lower”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Nov 07, 2025 · 2025-11-07T14:00:00	Robert Lewin	kept	The Q4 2025 call reported ANI of $1.12 per share including the carried interest repayment obligation and $1.30 per share excluding it.
“we feel confident that we can achieve the $7-plus per share, and that includes the impact of our cash-based reporting approach for Global Atlantic”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Nov 07, 2025 · 2025-11-07T14:00:00	Robert Lewin	pending	Reaffirmed with a deterioration caveat on the Q4 2025 call. On the Q1 2026 call management said it is more likely to land below $7. The 2026 year is not complete within the supplied call history.
“We continue to think that the right level to model the business is in that 250-plus range per quarter over the next 4 quarters.”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q4 2025 Earnings Call, Feb 05, 2026 · 2026-02-05T14:00:00	Robert Lewin	pending	One quarter has elapsed within the supplied history: Q1 2026 insurance segment operating earnings were $260 million, consistent with the guided level.
“that represents over $1.2 billion of gross monetization revenue for KKR”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T14:00:00	Robert Lewin	pending	Described by management as the largest forward monetization figure discussed on a call in the firm's history. No subsequent call exists in the supplied index against which to test it.
“if you were handicapping our ability to reach $7 per share, we do think it is more likely that we land below that level”	KKR & Co. Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T14:00:00	Robert Lewin	pending	This is the first downward revision to the ANI target in the supplied history. Management said any delayed monetizations would shift to 2027 and beyond rather than being lost. No later call is available to test that.

Q&A pressure map

Question counts and firms are curator tallies; analyst coverage shown above.

Topic	Questions	Firms	Pressure / response
Insurance / Global Atlantic earnings power and ROE	24	BofA Securities, Evercore ISI, Barclays, TD Cowen, Wolfe Research, Morgan Stanley, Autonomous Research, Jefferies, Deutsche Bank, KBW, Piper Sandler, BNP Paribas, HSBC	The most persistently pressed topic in the index, present on all twelve calls. Analysts keep returning to one question - what is the normalized ROE and when is it reached - and it has not been answered with a number. On the Q3 2025 call management said there is no explicit target beyond moving all-in returns from high teens to north of 20; on the Q1 2026 call the same question drew a mark-adjusted run rate and a pointer to the disclosure page. Everything else about this business is disclosed generously, which makes the gap conspicuous.
Monetization visibility and realization timing	19	Evercore ISI, Autonomous Research, Jefferies, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Citizens JMP Securities, BMO Capital Markets, UBS Investment Bank	Present on eleven of twelve calls, usually as a request for the visible pipeline figure. Management has answered this one specifically and consistently, quarter after quarter, and the figures have generally been met or exceeded. That track record is the main reason the Q1 2026 walk-back on the annual target reads as a timing statement rather than a credibility problem.
Private wealth, K-Series and the Capital Group partnership	17	Evercore ISI, BNP Paribas, Wells Fargo Securities, BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs, Autonomous Research, Jefferies, TD Cowen, Wolfe Research, Piper Sandler	Sustained questioning about platform additions, product design and eventual 401(k) access, spread across ten of the twelve calls. Answers have been detailed on process and have consistently declined to forecast flows, with management repeating that it does not read into month-to-month sales - which is why the Q1 2026 statement that a Q2 slowdown is expected stands out.
Asset-based finance and private credit scale	16	Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Evercore ISI, TD Cowen, Wolfe Research, Barclays, Wells Fargo Securities, BNP Paribas, Piper Sandler	Consistent questioning on origination capacity, bank retrenchment and whether scale erodes returns. The character shifted on the most recent call from growth runway to redemptions and institutional appetite.
Capital markets revenue run rate	14	KBW, Wolfe Research, Citizens JMP Securities, Deutsche Bank, BofA Securities, TD Cowen, Jefferies, Barclays	A recurring topic through Q3 2025 and then entirely absent from the last two calls. Management's standing answer was that the business is not one to evaluate quarterly and that the 2021 revenue level is beatable; reported quarterly fees have since settled at $225 million and $224 million, which is the most likely reason the questions stopped.
2026 guidance building blocks	11	KBW, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Citizens JMP Securities, TD Cowen	On the Q3 2025 call an analyst asked, in the same breath as an insurance question, what expense-side mitigants exist if the $7 target is missed. The reply covered insurance ROE and reaffirmed the target but never addressed the expense question. That was the one point in the sequence where the shortfall scenario was raised in advance, and it went unanswered.
AI exposure and disintermediation risk	8	Evercore ISI, Morgan Stanley, TD Cowen, Wolfe Research, Autonomous Research	Enters as a single DeepSeek question in Q4 2024 and is concentrated in the two most recent calls. Management has answered with exposure percentages, portfolio-scrub assurances and value-creation anecdotes; two direct requests on the Q1 2026 call - for KPIs and for a quantified revenue-versus-cost split - were both declined.

Language shifts

Only language evidence verified against the referenced component is shown.

Observation	Verbatim evidence	Call ID	Component
The hedging on 2026 earnings tightened in one step. The Q3 2025 language was unreserved confidence in the ANI target; Q4 2025 added a conditional about environment deterioration; Q1 2026 states reduced visibility outright and guides below the number.	“we do have modestly less visibility today than what our budget would have suggested at this point in the year”	1993116377	2
New vocabulary that enters in Q3 2025 and then recurs: the Q4 2025 prepared remarks say the firm is seeing much greater bifurcation across the industry, and the Q1 2026 Q&A calls it extreme bifurcation. The words do work — they let relative outperformance stand in for absolute results in a weaker environment.	“I think the 2 keywords are dispersion and bifurcation.”	1962925140	34
The perception-versus-reality frame has hardened. In Q2 2024 the closing note was simply that the market is open and the firm is active. By Q1 2026 the prepared remarks are built around a slide deck comparing operating metrics to the share price, and end by telling listeners not to trust the headlines.	“The fact is perception of the volatility of our business and industry is disconnected from the lived experience and that's okay.”	1993116377	3
Management retired an Investor Day target in-flight — the 2026 total operating earnings figure — on the grounds that its own insurance accounting choice made the metric less comparable. The reasoning is disclosed and internally consistent, but it is a target being reframed rather than met or missed.	“It's just not a metric as relevant to '26 guidance given this dynamic.”	1962925140	9
First explicit forward caution on wealth flows in the supplied history. Prior quarters consistently described K-Series activity as at or ahead of expectations without a forward qualifier.	“Given all the market noise, we were candidly surprised by the strength of flows in Q1. But we also do expect a slowdown in Q2, consistent with what we saw after the tariff announcements last year.”	1993116377	2
Insurance commentary shifted from opportunity to discipline. Management describes pulling back on origination and being more selective, where earlier calls described leaning in, elongating liabilities and adding alternatives. The competitive pressure is presented as cyclical and the firm points to $6 billion of dry powder equity as the way it intends to benefit when spreads widen.	“In the first quarter, we continued to see increased levels of competition here, particularly in the retail channel.”	1993116377	2

Twelve calls show an operating story that has compounded with unusual consistency and a disclosure posture that keeps moving the measuring stick — the 2026 total operating earnings target retired in-flight, the insurance ROE question asked in most quarters and never answered with a number, and now the ANI target guided below not long after being reaffirmed. The fee engine is not really in dispute; what the call history sharpens is how much credit to extend to management's framing that the delayed monetizations are timing rather than value.

---

Competitors describe KKR & Co. Inc.'s market in their own filings and calls. These verified passages and visual pages show where their strategies meet, using source documents preserved in Sources.

Blackstone (BX)

The largest alternative manager and KKR's broadest head-to-head rival across private equity, credit, infrastructure, real estate and the private-wealth channel. Blackstone is also where the sharpest strategic contrast with KKR sits: management repeatedly presents its decision not to own an insurer - versus KKR's ownership of Global Atlantic - as a competitive advantage in the same insurance-capital market.

Blackstone's stated position in third-party credit and its explicit strategic fork on insurance - managing money for insurers rather than owning one, the opposite of KKR's Global Atlantic model - sized against a $40 trillion global insurance market.

Jonathan D. Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer: Blackstone has built the largest third-party focused credit business in the world with $484 billion across corporate and real estate credit, up threefold in the past 5 years. Over the same period, revenue from this platform has increased more than fourfold. […] The scale and breadth of our platform, distinctive origination capabilities, connectivity with borrowers across the market and our open architecture multi-client model in the insurance channel are significant advantages. In insurance specifically, our decision to be an asset manager for insurance companies rather than becoming one positions us well to address the $40 trillion global insurance market. Today, we manage over $250 billion on behalf of insurers across private credit, liquid credit and other strategies, up 20% yearover-year.

p. 2 · Read in context →

Blackstone's cited share claim in the private-wealth channel KKR is scaling into with K-Series: an estimated 50% of private wealth revenue across the major alternative firms, on $43 billion of 2025 wealth fundraising. The 50% figure is attributed to third-party analyst research, not to Blackstone's own measurement.

Blackstone management, Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings call: Of particular note, our fundraising in private wealth increased 53% year over year in 2025 to $43 billion. And we expect strong inflows again in 2026 given our performance and continuous innovation. According to recent analyst research, Blackstone Inc. has an estimated 50% share of all private wealth revenue across the major alternative firms. In total, the firm's fundraising success lifted assets under management 13% year over year to a new industry record of nearly $1.3 trillion.

p. 1 · Read in context →

Answering an analyst question on whether banks are becoming more competitive in direct lending and what that does to spreads. Gray characterises bank-versus-direct-lending choice as a constant, then argues few managers can offer insurers an 'open architecture' model without competing with them - a claim aimed at owner-operators of insurance balance sheets such as KKR and Apollo.

Jonathan Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer: So on banks, the banks I think are feeling healthy. They are in the marketplace. There is this sort of constant set of choices—should you do a bank-led deal or direct lending deal. That's been going on for a long time. And even for us on the private equity side, each deal is a little bit different. So to me, that dynamic is a little more of a constant. I would point out one of the benefits of the market is getting better as deal volume goes up. So you need, I think, both the private credit and the bank market because I do expect that volumes certainly next year in the deal business will go up, which creates a healthier supply-demand balance for capital. On the insurance front, there, it's pretty limited in terms of the number of people with an open architecture model not competing in the insurance space and who can do this at real scale. And that, I think, has been very beneficial for us. I think that's why you continue to see our rapid growth. I would say the momentum we have in our insurance business is pretty exceptional today.

p. 11 · Read in context →

Apollo Global Management (APO)

The closest structural mirror to KKR: a credit-led asset manager bolted to a wholly owned annuity writer (Athene) the way KKR is bolted to Global Atlantic, with the same two-engine model of fee-related earnings plus spread. Apollo competes with KKR for the same origination, the same retirement liabilities and the same wealth and 401(k) allocations.

Apollo's own definition of the private-credit market it and KKR both address - recasting it from the widely cited $2 trillion of levered lending to roughly $40 trillion once investment-grade private credit is included. This is Apollo's framing of the TAM, not an independent estimate.

Marc Rowan, Chief Executive Officer: Let me flip now to discuss private credit. The press remains fixated on a $2 trillion slice of this market, which should properly be called levered lending. Most of the financial press treats this as the entire story of what's happening in private markets, and it is far from it. The investment-grade private credit market, which is being driven by the global industrial renaissance, is a $38 trillion market. Therefore, the total opportunity in private credit is some $40 trillion. The obsession with this very narrow corner, the $2 trillion slice of levered lending, is frankly a failure of imagination.

p. 1 · Read in context →

Apollo on pricing conditions in the annuity market where Athene competes with KKR's Global Atlantic: $82 billion of 2025 organic origination, and a claim that rivals wrote business in Q1 at 'ridiculously low spreads' - Apollo's characterisation of competitor behaviour.

Marc Rowan, Chief Executive Officer: Enough on asset management for the moment; let's flip to Retirement Services. There is significant demand for guaranteed lifetime income and for retirement income in all forms. The global retirement crisis gets clearer day by day, and we believe this is one of the biggest secular opportunities out there. Against that backdrop, we tap a portion of this market through Athene. 2025 was a record year with $82 billion of organic origination, and we expect and plan to do more in 2026. In Q1, we saw lots of competition, in our view irrational competition, with people putting business on the books at ridiculously low spreads. We did the business we wanted to do and not more. Fortunately, we had a very strong and rich origination pipeline, which allowed us to continue to preserve spread against this competitive backdrop.

p. 4 · Read in context →

The competition disclosure in Apollo's FY2025 annual report, which maps the demand pools it is chasing into six markets - institutional alternatives, individuals, insurance, traditional asset managers, fixed-income/equity replacement and defined contribution/401(k) - the same list KKR's growth plan runs through, plus Athene's stated 'leading presence' claim in retirement services.

Within the asset management business, Apollo operates in an intensely competitive industry, and expects it to remain so. We compete globally and on a regional, industry and niche basis. We face competition both in the pursuit of investor capital and in making investments on behalf of funds and accounts we manage across credit and equity asset classes. […] We have seen capital demand increasing over six discrete markets on a global basis: institutional investor alternative allocations, individuals, insurance, traditional asset managers, institutional investors for fixed income and equity replacement, and defined contribution/401(k). With the growing demand for capital, we expect the composition of competition may shift and evolve over time. […] Athene believes that its leading presence in the retirement services market, diverse range of capabilities and broad distribution network uniquely position it to effectively serve consumers' increasing demand for retirement solutions.

p. 25 · Read in context →

Ares Management (ARES)

The scale rival in credit, which is KKR's largest asset-management pool, and a fast-moving competitor in the same semi-liquid wealth products. Ares describes itself as one of the largest self-originating direct lenders in the US and Europe, and it publishes its own market-share position in the wealth channel KKR is building out.

Ares' stated share position in the private-wealth channel - a self-described top-5 placing with market share 'approaching 10%' across eight semi-liquid perpetual products - the same distribution contest KKR's K-Series vehicles are in. Share figure is Ares' own estimate.

Michael J. Arougheti, Chief Executive Officer: In the wealth channel, we continue to benefit from our top 5 leadership position with an estimated market share approaching 10%. Our momentum remains strong with our fundraising for the first half of the year totaling $7 billion in equity commitments, a 54% increase over the first half of 2024. AUM across our eight semi liquid products crossed $50 billion, and now seven of our eight products are over $1 billion with our eighth product launched in June, seeing early traction and well on its way. We believe that we have one of the broadest product sets in the market with eight semi-liquid perpetual products spanning credit, private equity, real estate, infrastructure and sports, media and entertainment. […] Importantly, we conducted business with over 1,300 new financial advisers in the quarter, which is up over 200% from a year ago and illustrates our progress penetrating new financial advisers within existing channels as more investors adopt alternative investments.

p. 2 · Read in context →

Ares' sizing of dry powder in private credit and its argument that the asset class has grown only in line with the $5 trillion private equity sector. Offered as a rebuttal to concerns about private-credit expansion, so it is advocacy as well as measurement.

Michael J. Arougheti, Chief Executive Officer: For example, if you look over the last 25 years, U.S. private credit has contracted once, which was over 10 years ago, versus the banking sector, which has contracted eight times over the same period. Today, Ares Management Corporation has over 100 billion dollars in available capital to invest in credit, and we estimate that the industry has over 500 billion dollars of available capital, which is larger than the size of the entire non-traded BDC industry. While private credit has expanded at low double-digit rates over the past decade, this growth tracks in line with the growth of the 5 trillion dollar private equity sector and other private market asset classes.

p. 3 · Read in context →

Ares' FY2025 annual report describing its Credit Group scale - $406.9 billion of AUM and a claim to be one of the largest self-originating direct lenders in the US and Europe - the market where KKR's credit franchise and FS KKR compete.

Through our Credit Group, we serve as one of the largest managers of credit strategies across the non-investment grade credit universe, with $406.9 billion of AUM and over 305 funds as of December 31, 2025. […] The Credit Group is one of the largest self-originating direct lenders to the U.S. and European middle markets with a growing presence in the APAC region, offering one-stop financing solutions for small-tomedium sized companies and counterparties that we believe are increasingly underserved by traditional bank lenders.

p. 20 · Read in context →

Brookfield Asset Management (BAM)

The main rival in infrastructure and real assets, where KKR's Global Infrastructure franchise has been its fastest-growing area, and a competitor on the insurance-annuity axis through the Brookfield Wealth Solutions annuity mandate it manages - the affiliate structure that plays the role Global Atlantic plays for KKR, though Brookfield Asset Management manages the assets rather than owning the liabilities. Its calls size the 401(k) and retirement opportunity both firms are positioning for.

Brookfield's sizing of the US retirement and wealth pools - over $10 trillion in 401(k) plans and retail annuities plus another $10 trillion in private wealth - alongside its own $100 billion annuity mandate for Brookfield Wealth Solutions, the structure that parallels KKR's Global Atlantic.

Connor Teskey, President: In the U.S. alone, 401(k) plans and retail annuities now represent over $10 trillion in assets, on par with institutional pools, and private wealth clients represent another $10 trillion opportunity. A recent executive order from the U.S. administration could accelerate this shift by laying the groundwork for greater access to private strategies through workplace retirement plans. Even a modest reallocation could result in hundreds of billions to trillions of net new flows into alternatives over time. […] Brookfield Wealth, which is on track to raise over $30 billion of capital this year from private wealth and insurance annuity channels. […] At the same time, we manage approximately $100 billion and growing portfolio of annuities on behalf of Brookfield Wealth Solutions, which is designed to generate stable, attractive returns for retirement accounts.

p. 7 · Read in context →

Brookfield's claim that its infrastructure and renewable power franchise is 'the largest and most established globally', and its $7 trillion estimate for AI-related infrastructure over the next decade - the thesis behind a new AI infrastructure fund competing with KKR's infrastructure and data-centre strategies.

Connor Teskey, President: Our infrastructure and renewable power franchise is one example of this momentum. As over the past 12 months, we've raised $30 billion, deployed $30 billion and monetized over $10 billion at approximately 20% returns, demonstrating strength, scale, and consistency of our platform. Our franchise is the largest and most established globally, serving as a cornerstone of our business and a key driver of long-term growth. […] We estimate that AI-related infrastructure investments will exceed $7 trillion over the next decade. Brookfield's unique position, owning and operating across the full energy and digital infrastructure value chain gives us a tremendous advantage in capturing this opportunity.

p. 4 · Read in context →

Asked whether recent retail redemptions change its plans, Brookfield concedes private wealth is smaller for it than for peers, then claims advanced discussions with major target-date fund providers about default 401(k) portfolios and market leadership in placing real assets into annuity portfolios - both contested ground with KKR.

Connor Teskey, Chief Executive Officer: Obviously, private wealth is a smaller portion of our business relative to some of our peers. We've been very methodical and thoughtful in how we build that business for the long term. […] I would also mention the individual market. And in this regard, we think our growth and penetration of the individual market is perhaps accelerating far faster than people appreciate. […] On the 401(k) and retiree market side, we're in advanced discussions with some of the largest target date fund providers who are interested in putting Brookfield's real asset products into some of their default portfolios, they're recognizing the role that long-duration, inflation-linked cash generative, downside protected investments can play in those portfolios. And then we're certainly the market leader in terms of introducing real asset exposure into insurance policy and annuity portfolios through our partnership with BWS.

p. 13 · Read in context →

The Carlyle Group (CG)

A direct private-equity peer competing for the same large-cap buyouts, the same exit windows and the same LP dollars, now building the same credit-plus-insurance adjacency KKR has - Carlyle through its Fortitude Re partnership rather than an owned balance sheet.

Carlyle's claim to be the number one private equity sponsor globally by IPO proceeds since 2024 - a monetisation-league-table claim in the exit market where KKR's realisation pace is judged. The ranking is Carlyle's own assertion.

Harvey Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer: We closed out the year with record assets under management of $477 billion, driven by strong investment performance and robust fundraising across the platform. […] Over the last several years, a lot has been written about low levels of monetizations in the private equity industry. The Carlyle Group Inc. has proven to be an exception to that narrative. Since 2024, we have been the number one private equity sponsor globally by IPO proceeds, generating roughly $10 billion of IPO issuance over the past two years. This number is more than any other firm in our industry.

p. 1 · Read in context →

Carlyle's credit build-out, now 45% of firm AUM, including an $87 billion insurance solutions platform anchored by Fortitude Re and a $13 billion direct lending book - the partnership-based route into insurance capital, versus KKR's owned Global Atlantic.

John Redett, Chief Financial Officer: Global Credit AUM now comprises 45% of firm-wide assets and has grown at a 33% CAGR over the past 5 years. And Global Credit's FRE is now nearly 1/3 of Carlyle's total. […] Our $87 billion insurance solutions platform is anchored by our strategic partnership with Fortitude Re and has been quite active over the past few months. […] Our $13 billion direct lending platform has been growing at a 20% CAGR in the past 5 years. We believe the market opportunity for direct lending will continue to grow, and we are continuing to invest in this platform, adding resources across leadership and origination.

p. 3 · Read in context →

EQT AB (EQT)

The leading European-headquartered private markets firm, competing with KKR for European and Asian buyouts (via BPEA), for infrastructure assets, and for the same LP relationships as allocators consolidate. Its management speaks directly to industry consolidation and share shift in a way US peers generally avoid.

Answering an analyst on whether deals have become harder and LPs more cautious, EQT's CEO describes an industry that is maturing and consolidating, claims the strongest non-US presence in the sector, and says EQT is taking share in fundraising - a claim about the same LP wallet KKR raises from.

Per Franzén, Chief Executive Officer: Having said that, of course, our industry is maturing, is consolidating it's becoming more and more competitive. And this has been an evolution and a development over the last decade or longer, which is why during this time, we have just continued to invest into our alpha generating capabilities. Right? We have the strongest presence in the world outside of the US. In our target geographies, we have hundreds of investment professionals on the ground across Europe, across Asia. We have globally leading sector franchise and insights in our target sectors. […] It's more important than ever before, which is why the consolidation of our industry is continuing and is likely to accelerate, and is also why we are continuing to take market share in our fundraisers.

p. 18 · Read in context →

EQT's stated digital-and-energy infrastructure footprint - more than 90 data centres via EdgeConneX, a 100GW development pipeline and over $100 billion of enterprise value - behind a new dedicated AI infrastructure strategy, against a $4 trillion five-year investment estimate it attributes to industry sources.

Per Franzén, Chief Executive Officer: Through our ownership of EdgeConneX, EQT Infra today operates more than 90 data centres globally. On the connectivity side, 29 million miles of fibre network has been deployed globally across our portfolio and the energy companies that we that were invested in EQT Infra have a development pipeline exceeding 100GW. The enterprise value of our digital and energy assets combined today is north of $100 billion. We see global demand for AI compute and hence data centres and power consumption only accelerating. Industry estimates suggest that $4 trillion will be invested into data centres and energy infrastructure to meet this demand over the next five years. At the same time, we see bottlenecks in the form of access to power, reinforcing the need for a coordinated investment approach across digital and energy infrastructure. And this is why we're now launching a dedicated EQT AI infrastructure strategy focussed on investing in a holistic way in the physical infrastructure that AI requires.

p. 4 · Read in context →

More peer documents

Q3_FY2025 — 13 pages · Analyst asks point-blank what share alternatives will eventually take of the $12 trillion US 401(k) channel and of traditional asset management; Rowan's answer is the clearest peer view of the retirement TAM KKR is also chasing. · Open →

Q1_FY2026 — 16 pages · Blackstone's most recent quarter: record $1.3 trillion AUM, $69 billion of inflows and infrastructure cited as the strongest performer - the current scale benchmark KKR is measured against. · Open →

Q4_FY2025 — 14 pages · Ares Capital Corporation's own call (the BDC Ares manages), where management claims it more than doubled its share of financings across its top 10 incumbent borrowers - the direct-lending share contest FS KKR sits in. · Open →

Q2_FY2026 — 20 pages · EQT launches its AI Infrastructure Fund and a Scaleup Europe strategy, sizing a EUR 500 billion European scale-up funding gap - the European growth-capital ground KKR also works. · Open →

BX_annual_report_FY2025 — 285 pages · Blackstone's latest annual report: segment-level AUM, perpetual-capital disclosure and the competition risk factors that define the peer set KKR is graded within. · Open →

BAM_annual_report_FY2025 — 179 pages · Brookfield's annual report sets out fee-bearing capital by strategy and the five-year plan to roughly $1.2 trillion, the basis for its infrastructure and credit growth targets. · Open →

Q2_FY2025 — 10 pages · Carlyle details its UBS wealth partnership, nearly $30 billion of perpetual evergreen strategies and six insurance origination partnerships - the wealth and insurance channels KKR is scaling in parallel. · Open →

Q4_FY2025 — 16 pages · Zelter urges investors to look past the '2 trillion pond' of non-investment-grade private credit to a 40 trillion opportunity - the fullest statement of Apollo's market redefinition. · Open →