For one thing, as more investment banking firms and leveraged buyout specialists compete for deals, there are bound to be mistakes.

Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Company, the buyout specialists, made a tender offer at $90 a share, or $20.43 billion, two weeks ago.

And buyout specialists, especially foreign firms, are small and can concentrate on only a few companies at a time.

That was the commitment Kohlberg, Kravis, the leveraged buyout specialist, had made in September.

"The environment has definitely changed there since the beginning of the year," said one buyout specialist who has been scouting in South Korea for deals.

That pries open the once-cloistered market, buyout specialists say.

The men led an exodus of five other buyout specialists from First Boston to start Vestar in May.

Leveraged buyout specialists know them from Odyssey Partners, the investment boutique they opened when they left the brokerage business in 1982.

Leveraged buyout specialists occupied four of the top 10 slots.

Sybron will be sold for $390 million by Forstmann Little, the leveraged buyout specialists.