KKR & Co., Inc. (KKR) Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2022

May 3, 2022 10:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to KKR's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions].

I'll now hand the call over to Craig Larson, Head of Investor Relations for KKR. Craig, please go ahead.

Craig Larson

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2021 earnings call. This morning, I'm joined this morning by Scott Nuttall, our Co. Chief Executive Officer; and Rob Lewin, our CFO.

We'd like to remind everyone that we'll refer to non-GAAP measures on the call which are reconciled to GAAP figures in our press release, which is available on the Investor Center section at kkr.com and as a reminder, we report our segment numbers on an adjusted-share basis.

This call will contain forward-looking statements, which do not guarantee future events or performance. Please refer to our earnings release and our SEC filings for cautionary factors about these statements.

So we're pleased to be reporting strong results this morning. Fee-related earnings per share for the first quarter were $0.69, up 66% year-over-year and as high a quarterly figure as we've ever reported and after-tax DE per share came in at $1.10, that's up almost 50% compared to the first quarter of 2021 and is the second highest quarterly figure we reported. And when you look at the quarter, our results and our activities you're seeing really four things. First, you're seeing the strength and resiliency of our model, as well as our people. Despite all of the volatility and uncertainty, we reported strong results pretty much across every metric.

Second, as businesses inside KKR are growing and scaling, they're inflecting and they're having a real impact on our numbers. In private markets, for example, our infrastructure and our real estate platforms of scale, so our real asset strategies comprised over half of both our fundraising and our deployment over the last 12 months.

Third, we're finding creative ways to enhance our strategic positioning. Last week we closed on the previously announced acquisition of a Japanese REIT business. It's one of the largest real estate platforms in the second largest real estate market in the world. And finally, despite the volatility and increased uncertainty, our limited partners are continuing to entrust us with their capital. Strong investment performance has been a critical driver of all of the success that we've had here.