This week marked the sudden passing of Bruce Wasserstein, one of the world’s most successful private equity investors and richest men. Wasserstein, 61, died of heart-related complications in a New York Hospital.
Wasserstein worked on deals valued at more than $250 billion during his 32-year career in finance. His hardball tactics were immortalized in the 1990 book, Barbarians at the Gate, which told the story of the private equity firm KKR’s takeover of food and tobacco giant RJR Nabisco. At $30 billion, it was the biggest leveraged buyout in history for many years. Wasserstein was among the first bankers to use public relations advisors to gain the upper hand in a takeover, according to The Times Online.
After earning a Harvard MBA and attending the London School of Economics, Wasserstein worked as an attorney and then joined First Boston in 1977. He left to start his private equity career, setting up his own advisory firm, Wasserstein Perella & Co in 1988, which he sold to Dresdner Bank in 2001 for $1.5 billion. He joined Lazard Ltd. in 2002 and became its chief executive and chairman in 2005.
Wasserstein was famous for his strategic thinking, and his ability to convince bidders to pay more than they planned for an acquisition. He invented the “Pac Man” defense where a takeover target turns around and buys its would-be acquirer instead. The large private equity deals he worked over his career included:
– Robert Campeau’s $6.6 billion takeover of Federated Department Stores, which included Bloomingdale’s
– $9 billion purchase of Conoco by DuPont
– The $10.7 billion purchase of Getty Oil by Texaco
– Time Inc.’s $13.4 billion deal for Warner Communications
– KKR’s $30 billion takeover of RJR Nabisco
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