Henry Kravis, dealmaker extraordinaire, was this week strolling the corridors of Wall Street. But when the co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Scott Nuttall, one of his young partners, visited staff at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs on Monday, it was not because he was about to acquire and restructure yet another troubled industrial company. Instead, the two investment banks are advising KKR on what is to be its own New York listing.

KKR, arguably the most venerable name in the 30-year history of leveraged buy-outs - where private equity uses a sliver of its own investors' cash and lots of borrowed money to take over a company - has picked a seemingly odd time and awkward way to make its public debut. It is to merge with its ailing Amsterdam listed offshoot called KKR Private Equity Investors (KPE) and list the combined entity on the New York Stock Exchange.