Thomas H. Lee, a billionaire financier who ran some of the private equity industry’s most successful deals during its early rise in the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 78.
In 1974, Lee founded Thomas H. Lee Partners, a boutique investment firm that perfected the early art of leveraged buyouts and became one of the industry’s largest companies in the mid-1990s after a series of successful deals highlighted by the acquisition of beverage company Snapple grew up .
By the mid-2000s, Lee had become one of the wealthiest private equity investors in the US, and his Boston-based firm was one of the industry’s largest by assets, managing more than $12 billion and a prolific dealmaker in a boom big takeovers like Dunkin Brands and the media ratings group Nielsen.
In late 2005, Lee left his eponymous firm, now THL, to found a New York-based private equity firm called Lee Equity Partners, which focused on mid-market buyouts, of which he was most recently Chairman. The group manages $3 billion in capital and a portfolio of private equity investments in financial services, healthcare and business services. According to Forbes, his net worth was estimated at $2 billion at the time of his death.
“We are deeply saddened by the unexpected passing of our good friend and former partner Thomas H. Lee,” THL said in a press release late Thursday. “Tom was an icon in private equity. He pioneered an industry and mentored generations of young professionals who followed in his footsteps.”
The son of an executive at the Shoe Company of America, once the maker of Clark’s footwear, Lee grew up in the Boston area and graduated from Harvard College in 1965 before becoming a securities analyst in LF Rothschild’s research department.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he cut his early stint as Director of Technology Lending at First National Bank of Boston before founding his own firm, which focused on corporate acquisitions, then known as “bootstrap” deals , since they often resorted to debt financing companies.
After finding success in the 1980s and 1990s, Lee became an influential philanthropist and avid art collector, serving as a trustee at cultural institutions such as Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
He was also a prolific benefactor to his alma mater, Harvard, Brandeis University, and the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, among others.
“The family is deeply saddened by Tom’s passing,” said Mike Sitrick, a spokesman and family friend. “Our hearts are broken. We ask that our privacy be respected and that we may mourn.”