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

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Craig Larson: And then Glenn, it’s Craig. I did have €“ why don’t I just pick up on one of the statistics you mentioned on opportunistic real estate. And there are really two points there. Rob’s already hit on the first just as it relates to the consistency around that process for us and the work we do with evaluation agent. In the case of real estate, specifically that value agent will look at recent transactions and they’ll come up with cap rate and discount rate assumptions for that specific quarter. So in a quarter like Q4, transaction activity was really muted. Volumes in the U.S. were off something like 60%, but in those observable transactions our cap rates widened. And so that’s really what drove the performance figure in real estate that you saw for the quarter.

Now, the second point, which we think is more important honestly, is the fundamentals in the portfolio itself. As our €“ we continue to feel great about the portfolio as well as those fundamentals. So our exposures continue to be weighted towards those assets and themes where you’re seeing strong fundamentals and strong growth. Industrial assets, data centers, rental housing, student housing, storage, those are over 80% of the portfolio in total, and we’re seeing strong fundamentals and cash flow growth there. On the flip side, we globally have only 1% exposure to retail, and our U.S. office exposure is below 5%. And then just to help put those two things together, to give you a sense, if we had used constant cap rate and discount rate assumptions in Q4, you actually would’ve seen the portfolio marked up in the quarter instead of that down for the quarter percentage that you did see.

So again we are really benefiting from strong underlying NOI growth, and that dynamic is really the reason that we put in Page 8. So I think as our clients evaluate us across our strategies, they’re looking at this inception performance, much less focused on any 90 day period, et cetera. And I think when you look at, since inception, as you noted and we appreciate that in your beginning of the question, the performance figures and in the case of real assets and real estate, the blue bars, I think we feel great about how we’ve been performing on behalf of our clients.

Scott Nuttall: Hey Glenn, it’s Scott. Just €“ if I were you, I’d be trying to figure out is there anything to worry about here? And the punchline from my standpoint is no. I think as the guy said, we’ve had a very consistent methodology. It’s not at all surprise given the markets have been off, multiples have been off, they see some marks come down, but they’re just that marks. What matters to us is the fundamental operating performance of the portfolio, which continues to be really strong. If anything, we feel even better that we got it right in terms of investing behind the right themes the last several years, revenue and profitability metrics remain strong. The fundamental operating performance of our real asset book and our credit book remains strong, candidly, bit stronger than I might have expected given what’s going on with the economy and the backdrop.

So, overall we’re not worried about it. I would suggest you’re not worried about it either. My expectation is as markets rebound, you’ll see the marks rebound as well.

Operator: Our next question comes from Brian McKenna with JMP Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Brian McKenna: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. So you’ve done a great job expanding into a number of adjacent strategies and products over the past several years. I’m curious though, as we think about the next three to five years, should we expect this expansion into new areas to persist or will more of the focus be going deeper in the strategies you have today and moving more of these platforms from earlier stages of the life cycle to more mature and scale stages?

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