The Acquisitor Strikes Again

An appetite for acquisitions made Kohlberg Kravis Roberts the top takeover firm of the 1980s, but the no-deal '90s seemed to have stymied the buyout behemoth. Last week, however, KKR showed that it remains a powerful takeover force. In a deal that would give KKR a substantial interest in magazines, the firm led a partnership that included several former officers of the Macmillan publishing and information-services company in a tentative agreement to pay more than $600 million for nine U.S. publications owned by debt-laden media magnate Rupert Murdoch. The KKR group would acquire such titles as Seventeen, New York and the...