market folly

Jeff Ubben's activist firm ValueAct Capital has taken around a $750 million stake in private equity firm KKR (KKR).  Partner Mason Morfit talked about the position at 13D Monitor's Active-Passive Investor Summit in New York, according to Business Insider.

This is yet another prominent firm that has jumped on the private equity train.  We've highlighted recently how Tiger Global has been building a position in Apollo Global Management.

At the presentation, Morfit called KKR a "50 cent dollar" and thinks that big firms will get even larger.

ValueAct recently returned a chunk of capital to investors as they were having trouble finding ideas in a market with stretched valuations.  But apparently they've at least found one place to park some capital in KKR.

You can view other recent portfolio activity from ValueAct here.

Per Google Finance, KKR is "a global investment firm that manages investments across multiple asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit and hedge funds. The Company's business offers a range of investment management services to its fund investors, and provides capital markets services to its firm, its portfolio companies and third parties. The Company conducts its business with offices across the world, providing it with a global platform for sourcing transactions, raising capital and carrying out capital markets activities. The Company operates through four segments: Private Markets, Public Markets, Capital Markets and Principal Activities. It operates and reports its combined credit and hedge funds businesses through the Public Markets segment. The Capital Markets segment consists primarily of its global capital markets business. Through its Principal Activities segment, the Company manages the firm's assets and deploys capital."