Since 2011, KKR has supported its portfolio companies in awarding equity worth billions of dollars to over 60,000 non-management employees across more than 30 companies. Denmark-based Frontmatec, a leader in end-to-end automated solutions for the red meat processing industry, is one of the latest companies to implement a broad-based employee ownership program. Today, all 1,400 Frontmatec employees across 14 sites in North America, Europe, and Asia are now owners in the company.

In this video, KKR partner Josh Weisenbeck unveils the new employee ownership program at a Frontmatec facility in Denmark, and employees share their immediate reactions to becoming owners in the company for the first time.

Frontmatec joined KKR’s extended family in November 2022, when KKR and Bettcher Industries, a KKR portfolio company, completed their acquisition of the company. The acquisition represented an important step in building a diversified, scaled platform of food processing automation technologies with best-in-class capabilities to serve customers globally. Together with Bettcher, Frontmatec is a global market leader in protein processing automation.

KKR has supported the implementation of broad-based employee ownership programs throughout its portfolio, first in its U.S. Industrials private equity investments and now more broadly across sectors and regions. Through the program, KKR has demonstrated how broad-based engagement and alignment can create business value while driving greater financial inclusion.

KKR is also a founding partner of the cross-sector initiative Ownership Works, a nonprofit on a mission to increase prosperity by developing and implementing broad-based employee ownership programs.