Kelso & Company is an American private equity firm focusing on leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations and growth capital transactions. Kelso invests in a variety of sectors, including communication, manufacturing and restaurants. Kelso is based in New York City.
Kelso also provides mezzanine capital through a joint venture with asset management firm BlackRock. Their joint venture, BlackRock Kelso Capital Corp. (nasdaq: BKCC), is organized as a type of publicly traded private equity company known as a Business Development Company.
History
Founded in 1971 as Kelso Bangert & Company, the firm acted as both an advisor and merchant bank, both making investments and advising on mergers and acquisitions. Kelso was founded by Louis O. Kelso, a lawyer and economist who is given credit for developing the concept for employee stock ownership plans, in 1956. Kelso, alongside a sister company Louis O. Kelso Inc., focused initially on M&A activity involving Employee Stock Ownership Plans.[1]
Kelso raised its first private equity fund and has had a dedicated private equity investment platform since 1980.