By 1978, with the revision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act regulations, the nascent KKR was successful in raising its first institutional fund with approximately $30 million of investor commitments.Barbarians at the Gate, p. 136-140 That year, the firm signed a risky precedent-setting deal to buy the publicly traded conglomerate Houdaille Industries, which made machine tools, industrial pipes, chrome-plated car bumpers and torsional viscous dampers, for $380 million. The leveraged buyout was by far the largest take-private at the timeDavid Carey and John E. Morris, King of Capital The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone (Crown 2010) , pp. 13–14 and soon ended in a spectacular failure, breakup of the half-a-century-old company and loss of thousands of jobs, even though creditors earned a profit.
