KKR & Co Inc is set to generate one of its strongest investment returns in recent decades through the sale of Canadian data centre cooling business CoolIT Systems to Ecolab Inc, highlighting continued investor appetite for infrastructure linked to AI, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
The report cites unnamed executives familiar with the transaction as revealing that the private investment firm, which acquired a majority stake in CoolIT in 2023 at a valuation of $270m, is expected to realise a return of roughly 15 times its original equity investment. The exit ranks among the KKR’s top-performing deals in the past 20 years, alongside investments such as AppLovin, Kokusai Electric and CHI Overhead Doors.
Since KKR’s acquisition, CoolIT has undergone rapid expansion, with revenues increasing fourfold. The company has scaled its operations, more than doubled headcount and secured new hyperscale cloud customers, driven by rising demand for liquid cooling solutions in AI-focused data centres.
Headquartered in Canada, CoolIT develops cooling systems designed to manage heat in high-performance computing environments. The segment has seen increased deal activity, including Eaton Corporation’s near-$10bn acquisition of a thermal management business in 2025.
A notable feature of the deal is the scale of employee participation in the exit. CoolIT’s roughly 640 employees are expected to receive average payouts of about $240,000, with longer-tenured staff potentially receiving significantly more.
The distribution reflects KKR’s broader push to extend equity ownership to employees across its portfolio. The programme, now implemented at around 85 companies and covering nearly 200,000 workers, aims to align incentives and share value creation more widely.
According to KKR executives, the CoolIT transaction is expected to set a new internal benchmark for employee payouts relative to salary levels.
