Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, the world’s biggest buyout firm, will begin raising a global investment fund next month that may reach $10 billion, said investors who plan to meet with KKR executives.

KKR, led by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, is seeking money after spending most of its $6 billion Millennium fund from 2001. Oregon pension officials, who put $1 billion into Millennium, will speak with executives from the firm in January, the director of investments for the Oregon State Treasury, Ronald Schmitz, said. The treasury manages $64 billion.

“If Henry and George can raise $10 billion to $12 billion, I’m sure they will,” Mr. Schmitz, 52, said in a December 8 interview. Oregon has invested with KKR since 1981, when it helped finance the acquisition of American retailer Fred Meyer Co. “If we’re in for a big amount, it helps their marketing.”

KKR is approaching investors after a year in which buyout firms gathered more than $115 billion for new funds, according to Private Equity Intelligence, a London-based research firm. The Blackstone Group is close to collecting a record $12.5 billion for a new fund. KKR raised 4.5 billion $5.4 billion for its second European fund and opened its first offices in Asia.

It’s also a record year for leveraged buyouts. Takeover firms announced $246 billion of acquisitions, data compiled by Bloomberg show. KKR participated in two of the three biggest deals, including the $15.3 billion purchase of TDC A/S, Denmark’s biggest phone company, and the $11.3 billion buyout of SunGard Data Systems, whose software handles 70% of Nasdaq Stock Market trades.

KKR may allow investors in Millennium II to put money directly into takeovers it arranges, Mr. Schmitz said. That would give investors a chance for the first time to earn profits on top of their share of the fund’s returns from all deals, an arrangement known as co-investment.

“We expect to make a commitment that includes a co-investment element,” Mr. Schmitz said. “The specific details have yet to be worked out.”

The Washington state pension fund, KKR’s largest investor, expects to hear the firm’s pitch in the first half of next year, the fund’s executive director, Joseph Dear, said. KKR’s first Millennium fund produced annual returns of about 50% since it was started.

A spokeswoman for KKR, Ruth Pachman, said Mr. Roberts and a KKR partner, Michael Michelson, are scheduled to appear before the Oregon Investment Council in January. Trustees from Oregon’s pension fund are scheduled to vote on the new KKR fund on January 18. They will evaluate KKR’s performance relative to their desire to invest with other fund managers, Mr. Schmitz said. KKR already accounts for the biggest portion, or about one-third, of Oregon’s private-equity portfolio, followed by Texas Pacific Group, which also plans a new fund in 2006.