KKR to Goldman Breach Water Deal Dam in U.S.: Commodities

Brandon Freiman was sizing up water investments for KKR & Co.’s $4.6 billion infrastructure fund in 2011 when he came across a debt-burdened New Jersey city that Tony Soprano skirts by to open the Time Warner Inc. HBO series.

By December 2012, Bayonne, KKR and the United Water unit of Suez Environnement, Europe’s second-biggest water company, struck a first-of-its-kind deal in what bankers say may become a U.S. model. Results were almost immediate: Bayonne, at risk of a credit downgrade, cut debt by more than a third. Moody’s Investors Service raised its outlook to stable from negative.