KKR takes RJR Nabisco private (1988)
In the most famous leveraged buyout ever, KKR bought RJR Nabisco for $25.3 billion, more than double the company's market value at the time. The deal was financed with roughly $15 billion of new debt, an almost unprecedented amount, and it became the centerpiece of a bidding war that put the leveraged buyout in the mainstream of American finance and popular culture. The film Barbarians at the Gate was built around it.
Why it mattered
RJR Nabisco was the leveraged buyout of the decade, the deal that made the whole world pay attention to what private equity could do. It proved that sponsors could buy companies at enormous scale, and it pushed the limits of debt to a new frontier. It also became the cautionary tale of the era: the company struggled under its debt load, and the deal's aftermath reshaped how regulators and lenders thought about leverage. For better and worse, it defined an era.