KBRA

Founded in 2010 by Jules Kroll to restore trust in credit ratings in the wake of the global financial crisis.

KBRA is one of a small number of independent full-service credit rating agencies, providing ratings and research across structured finance, corporate and financial institution issuers, and government securities. Where the largest incumbents were slow or unwilling to engage with more complex and niche asset classes, KBRA built its franchise on the quality and transparency of its analytical research, competitive pricing, and a level of client service that larger agencies struggled to match.

• Scarcity value: KBRA was widely regarded as the last independent, full-service credit rating agency available to private capital. With post-financial crisis regulation creating formidable barriers to entry, KBRA occupied a position that could not readily be replicated, giving it natural appeal to both strategic and financial buyers over time.
• Attractive financial profile: A largely fixed cost base, strong pricing power and a high proportion of recurring revenue underpinned resilient, cash-generative economics. With the three largest agencies earning 50-55% margins in their ratings businesses, there was a clear structural path to margin expansion as KBRA scaled.
• Multiple growth levers: Including growing demand for ratings from private credit funds and alternative asset managers, the build-out of data and analytics capabilities, and expansion into international markets, where KBRA had a limited but growing presence.
• Sponsor expertise: Parthenon brought deep financial services expertise, having invested in the sector across multiple funds and tracked the rating agency space for a number of years.

Key drivers:

• Transformational earnings growth: Under Parthenon Capital’s ownership, revenue more than doubled and EBITDA nearly tripled with margins expanding as the operating leverage identified at underwriting came through.
• Leadership in private credit: KBRA established the market-leading position in ratings for private credit and fund-related structures, a segment the incumbent agencies were slower to serve, giving the business exposure to one of the fastest-growing areas of global credit markets.
• Improving revenue quality: Recurring and repeat revenues grew to more than 80% of the total, while a rapidly scaling data and analytics offering added further subscription income, reducing the company’s sensitivity to issuance cycles.
• Enduring scarcity value: Having proven itself as a credible independent alternative to the incumbent agencies, and protected by high regulatory barriers to entry, KBRA attracted strong investor demand at exit, with the 2026 continuation vehicle providing PIN with a full cash realisation at an attractive valuation.

Pantheon has invested with Parthenon Capital since Fund II in 2001, across both primary fund commitments and co-investments. This relationship gave Pantheon early access to the KBRA co-investment opportunity.

In early 2026, Parthenon restructured its KBRA ownership through a continuation vehicle transaction. PIN elected to take cash, receiving total distributions of approximately £18.8m against an original commitment of US$5.8m (approximately £4.4m), achieving a gross multiple of 4.0x and a gross internal rate of return of 40%.