Reggie Middleton

Some Key Observations on KKR Financial

The reason why you haven’t heard from me Mr. Bloom is that I generally do no comment on Seeking Alpha – whose comments section is rife with the negative, unprofessional attitude that is represented by your posts. It is time consuming and I have my own blog for commenting and interaction that I am quite active with. Feel free to come over to boombustblog.com and we can engage until your heart is content. The issue with KFN was an error and oversight on behalf of one of my younger analysts which I take full responsibility for since I hired him and the post was made under my name. It was an egregious error, but an error nonetheless – and they do happen.
It is highly irrelevant what would have happened to an analyst on the street (I didn’t fire my analyst for this, since mistakes do happen and we’re not on the Street), how long you have been working as an analyst, or how much other (big or name brand) investors invested in KFN. I often invest contrary to much larger or name brand investors, and do so quite profitably, regularly. One should never base their investment thesis on what XYZ investor did or did not do. Since I am not an analyst or bank employee, but a buy side investor that eats what he kills, my theses are either correct or I don’t eat. In general, I have eaten quite well.
My track record speaks for itself, and a quick perusal of my blog, marked to market, should be deserving of more than the disrespectful tone resonating from your comments. I am also quite confident the record reflects quite favorably compared to whatever institution you may be referring to in regards to the bar for analysts. It is quite possible to disagree without being derogatory, but if you are going to be derogatory (which is lacking in professionalism and plain old fashioned manners) you should at least have a firm empirical basis for doing so.
The aforementioned litany is basically the reason why I don’t comment on Seeking Alpha, but since an error was made on my watch and printed under my name, I felt compelled to bend the rules this time around to address it. Will I see you on my blog, Mr. Bloom? You are quite welcome there.