Henry Kravis' proudest deal: Tampa's Walter Industries 22 years ago

Here's an unexpected answer with a local spin from private equity dealmaker extraordinaire Henry Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Forbes magazine asked Kravis: "Looking back on your career, which deal are you the most proud of?" Kravis has plenty of choices over decades of deals, including the whopper $30 billion leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco. But his answer is Tampa's Walter Industries (which changed its name last week to Walter Energy), a deal KKR did 22 years ago. Said Kravis: "No, it wasn't Safeway where we made 50 times our money. It was Walter Industries which we bought in 1987. The company went into bankruptcy because of an asbestos litigation while we were holding it. We could have walked away but we fought it through. After 17 years we returned money to our investors."