It's hard to know exactly why Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) decided to disband its principal strategies group of proprietary traders in the wake of the Volcker Rule's passage. If the traders were as highly valued as some assumed, wouldn't the bank have wanted to keep them in internal hedge funds or market making units? Or did CEO Lloyd Blankfein and others feel the heyday of prop trading was over? Or did they not want to risk political heat by keeping prop traders in the truck albeit in another group? It's all unclear.

But Goldman Sachs' loss just might be Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts' gain (KKR news). KKR will hire about nine Goldman traders, led by Bob Howard, who heads Principal Strategies for Goldman in the United States, Reuters reports. The team will be added to KKR's asset management unit, which manages $13 billion.

KKR is expected to launch a long/short hedge fund next year, one of several big private equity firms bent on pushing deeper into hedge funds. Competitor Blackstone Group aims to start up as many as 15 hedge funds. We'll just have to see if this works out for all parties.  

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