As private market investing becomes an increasingly important part of wealth managers' portfolios, KKR is stepping up its private wealth channel.

KKR, aka Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, has appointed one of its senior figures to be global head of private wealth. 

Todd Builione will oversee the firm’s “strategic priority” of building its private wealth distribution platform to expand access to KKR’s alternative investment strategies for individual investors globally, the US-listed said in a statement yesterday. 

Builione will oversee KKR’s regional private wealth leads Dan Parant and Doug Krupa in the US, Markus Egloff in Asia-Pacific and Mark Tucker in Europe, Middle East and Africa, as well as the newly-created global private wealth product strategies effort led by Krupa. 

KKR said its private wealth team is an integral part of its client and partner group, led by Eric Mogelof.  

“Over the past decade, Todd has led a number of KKR’s important business priorities, including launching our strategic partnership with Marshall Wace and being instrumental in the growth of our Credit and Capital Markets businesses,” Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall, co-chief executive of KKR, said. “We believe the addition of a senior leader with a global focus will be additive to the success of our global private wealth effort, a critical component of our growth strategy and a big opportunity for the firm.”

KKR manages about $50 billion in private wealth assets through relationships with distribution partners and a large network of financial advisors and registered investment advisors. In recent years, between 10 and 20 per cent of new capital raised annually by KKR has come from private wealth, it said.

“The combination of a low yield environment, new technology and innovative investment structures is creating an inflection point in the industry and we see individual investors poised to significantly increase their allocations to alternatives in the coming years,” Eric Mogelof, global head of KKR’s client and partner group, said. 

Builione, who joined KKR in 2013, is a partner who most recently served as president of KKR Credit and Markets. Builione serves on the board of directors of Marshall Wace, a liquid alternatives provider in which KKR is a strategic partner, and the board of directors of FS KKR Capital Corp, a business development company which trades on the NYSE.