KKR shares slip 3 percent in long-awaited debut

The listing on the Big Board brings a wide investor audience to the private equity firm and could be a bellwether for rivals looking to follow suit.

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KKR shares opened at $10.50, rose as high as $11.08 and then fell back, closing on the NYSE at $10.20, down 2.8 percent.

Blackstone shares, which went public in 2007 at $31 a share, were higher, up 2.7 percent to $10.56.

"Today's NYSE listing is an important milestone for KKR and will provide an opportunity for investors to share in the value being created by our firm," Henry Kravis and George Roberts, co-founders and co-chief executives, said in a press release.

KKR has said the move will allow it to have a more permanent capital base, use stock to retain and attract staff, and have a currency to use in making acquisitions.

Michael Kim, who has a "buy" rating on the stock and a 12-month price target of $14, said the slip in the stock could also have been due to a run-up in price in the past weeks.

"If you look at the stock and what it did when it was trading in Europe over the past couple of weeks, it has had a good run, so maybe some of that initial enthusiasm was tempered by the fact it had run up a bit," Kim said.

Some investors had little enthusiasm for the stock.

"We seek fundamentally strong companies demonstrating a current history of price appreciation," said investment adviser Mike McGervey, president of McGervey Wealth Management in North Canton, Ohio, speaking ahead of the listing on Wednesday. "Investing in KKR would involve high levels of speculation."

KKR, behind huge acquisitions such as RJR Nabisco and TXU, originally announced plans to list on the NYSE through a traditional initial public offering in July 2007, a month after Blackstone went public and just before the markets started to tumble.