Buy-out firm KKR has teamed up with the Korean national pension system to acquire a significant minority stake in a Chevron pipeline company in a deal valued at close to $1bn.

The National Pension Service of Korea is one of the largest and fastest growing pension funds in the world with about $280bn under management.

The deal with KKR is structured as an account that the private equity firm manages on behalf of the Koreans, rather than as part of a fund in which the NPS passively invests. That unusual structure is likely to become more common as big national pools of money try to reduce the fees they pay the buy-out firms and increase their influence over the deals in which the buy-out firms invest.

They acquired a 23.4 per cent stake in the Colonial Pipeline, which runs from the Gulf of Mexico to the eastern seaboard of the US.