Jerome Kohlberg Jr. (July 10, 1925 – July 30, 2015) was an American businessman and investor. He was an early pioneer in theprivate equity andleveraged buyout industries foundingprivate equity firmKohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and laterKohlberg & Company.

Kohlberg was raised in aJewish family.^[2] He graduated fromNew Rochelle High School inNew Rochelle, New York. Kohlberg served in theUnited States Navy duringWorld War II and went on to college and graduate school on theGI Bill.^[3] He graduated fromSwarthmore College with a bachelor's degree in 1946. He earned aM.B.A. fromHarvard Business School and aLL.B. andLL.M. fromColumbia Law School.^[4][5] In 1986, he founded the Philip Evans Scholarship Foundation at Swarthmore.

Kohlberg joinedBear Stearns in 1955 where he would go on to manage the corporate finance department.^[6] Working for Bear Stearns in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kohlberg, alongside Bear Stearns executives began advising a series of what they described as "bootstrap" investments. Their acquisition ofOrkin Exterminating Company in 1964 is considered to have been among the first significantleveraged buyout transactions. In the following years the three Bear Stearns bankers would complete a series of buyouts including Stern Metals (1965), Incom (a division of Rockwood International, 1971), Cobblers Industries (1971), and Boren Clay (1973) as well as Thompson Wire, Eagle Motors and Barrows through their investment in Stern Metals. Although they had a number of highly successful investments, the $27 million investment in Cobblers ended in bankruptcy.^[7] Kravis and his associates created a series of limited partnerships to acquire these various corporations, ones they judged were performing well below their sales and profit potential or where there were untapped financial assets that could be monetized. In most cases, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co put up ten percent of the acquisition price from its own funds and borrowed the rest from investors by issuinghigh-yield bonds.^[8]

By 1976 tensions had built up betweenBear Stearns and the trio of Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts leading to their departure and the formation ofKohlberg Kravis Roberts in that year. Most notably, Bear Stearns executiveCy Lewis had rejected repeated proposals to form a dedicated investment fund within Bear Stearns and Lewis took exception to the amount of time spent on outside activities.^[9] Early investors in KKR included the Hillman Family Group ofHenry Hillman and the Hillman Company.^[10] By 1978, with the revision of the ERISA regulations, the nascent KKR was successful in raising its first institutional fund with approximately $30 million of investor commitments.^[11]

In 1987 Kohlberg resigned from KKR over differences in strategy andHenry Kravis andGeorge Roberts assumed full leadership of the firm.^[12] Kohlberg did not favor the large buyouts (which would likely have included the 1989 takeover ofRJR Nabisco) orhostile takeovers. Instead, Kohlberg chose to return to his roots, acquiring smaller, middle-market companies and, in 1987, founded a new private equity firmKohlberg & Company. As of the end of 2007 Kohlberg & Company had raised sixprivate equity funds since its inception, with approximately $3.7 billion of investor commitments. Additionally, Kohlberg also operated a series of debt investment funds under the banner of Katonah Debt Advisors, as well as a publicly traded investment vehicle Kohlberg Capital (NASDAQ:KCAP). Kohlberg retired from Kohlberg & Company in 1994.^[13]

Kohlberg died of cancer on July 30, 2015, onMartha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, twenty days after his 90th birthday.^[14]

Kohlberg participated in philanthropy through the Kohlberg Foundation.^[15]

• List of billionaires
• History of private equity and venture capital

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• Kohlberg's entry on Forbes 2006 list

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