Mogul Peterson dies

PETER PETERSON, a billionaire and business executive who became a prominent voice for entitlement reform and reducing the U.S. national debt, died of natural causes Tuesday in New York, his family said. He was 91.

Born in the small town of Kearney, Neb., to Greek immigrants, Peterson was CEO of two major U.S. companies and co-founded one of the world’s largest private-equity firms.

He was already a national figure in business by the early 1960s, serving as chairman and CEO of Bell and Howell, one of the largest manufacturers of movie cameras at the time. He left Bell and Howell to work for the Nixon administration in the early 1970s, and served as secretary of commerce from 1972 to 1973.

He took over as chief executive of Lehman Brothers in 1973. In 1985, he cofounded the private-equity firm Blackstone Group with Stephen Schwarzman.

Blackstone went on to become one of biggest privateequity firms in the world, with $434 billion in assets last year.

Peterson dedicated the last 10 years of his life to “key fiscal challenges threatening America’s future,” donating $1 billion to create the Peter G. Peterson Foundation in 2007.