Ethersnap

The private equity industry’s titans have long been worried this moment would come — and about the effect Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign will have on the industry.

“If he is a nominee, well, hold your seats,” Henry Kravis, the co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, told a room of executives at a dinner in Hong Kong last month, according to Reuters.

“They’re going to describe us all as asset strippers; we’re flippers of assets, we just put on a lot of debt, fire a lot of people and that’s how we make money,” he added. “You know that’s not the case. That’s absolutely not what we do.”