July 19, 2007 (LPAC)--An interview will appear in Germany's Manager Magazine tomorrow, in which private equity founders George Roberts and Henry Kravis of KKR forecast hard times ahead for the private-equity funds, just a month after KKR filed a public stock offering, or IPO, to bring common stock investors into their firm and cash out some of the managers' own capital. "The coming years will be harder, no question," Roberts will say, as confirmed by KKR's office to the Toronto Globe and Mail.

The interview is not only a strong clue that KKR--like Blackstone, Fortress, and other hedge funds and private equity funds--is pulling in ordinary investors as suckers as their "boom" bubble abruptly breaks. It is also more confirmation of the growing problems and losses in the $300 billion in outstanding financing that needs to be lined up by international banks to fund corporate takeovers that have already been announced as "completed" this years. Because the hedge funds that buy one-third or more of this junk-bond financing are taking big losses in the mortgage securities meltdown, with some going under and others having to cut back or stop buying junk bonds, the financing of leveraged corporate takeovers is in big trouble.

KKR has already had to interrupt financing attempts for three of its "completed" takeovers this year: of the Dutch retail company Maxeda; of the U.S. FoodService division of the Dutch giant Royal Ahold; and of the British retail chain Alliance Boots.