Partnering to take advantage of a foreseeable increase in initial public offerings (IPOs), the New York-based private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) has decided to sell shares of its private-equity companies through the Boston-based mutual fund bigwig Fidelity Investments.

In a statement announcing the KKR-Fidelity partnership, the two companies said that while Fidelity - which boasts of 12 million brokerage clientele - will exclusively dole out the KKR-backed IPOs and other equity offerings to individual investors; KKR will have exclusive access to Fidelity's clients.

The signing of the KKR-Fidelity deal - following the dashing success of the recent OpenTable-SolarWinds' agreement - will spell somewhat of an ease for the private- equity firms struggling to sell their investments, in the market that till lately appeared rather moribund.

Talking about the KKR-Fidelity deal, Mark Haggerty, of Fidelity Capital Markets, said: "There are some signs of the market opening up. "The great thing from our perspective is that by getting this alliance in place, we're ready for it when it does come."

According to Craig Farr, of KKR Capital Markets, the company - which approached Fidelity with the partnership proposal some months back - does not have any immediate plans to take any of its almost 50 portfolio companies public. However, Farr reiterated that KKR expected the IPO market to strengthen appreciably by the 2010 first quarter.