TRIBUTE TO A TITAN
Clintons mourn ‘Envy of Wall St.’
Thomas H. Lee, the billionaire financier who committed suicide in his Manhattan office last week, was mourned Monday as both a financial genius and a humble family man and philanthropist.
High-profile attendees, among them the Clintons and Dr. Mehmet Oz, rubbed elbows with former business associates and grieving relatives alike at funeral services at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall for the man once known as the “envy of Wall Street.”
His widow, Ann Tenenbaum, shared a somber thought through Lee’s brother-in-law during the service.
“Ann wanted to share this with you,” said David Bensinger. “Let us all remember the 79 amazing years of Tom’s life and not let all that be obscured by one bad moment at the end.”
Lee’s brother, meanwhile, noted that even the family may never know why he took his own life.
“As we all know, Tom left us too early and we will never have an answer,” Jon Lee said. “There’s a lot about each other we don’t know. We want everybody to think everything is OK all the time.
“We owe it to Tom and we owe it to ourselves to talk to each other and not to hide behind walls,” Lee continued. “So, Tom, you were the master of the universe. In your own quirky way, I know you’re at peace.”
‘Outpouring of love’
Lee, 78, was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the head inside the bathroom of his family office Thursday, with the city medical examiner ruling his death a suicide.
A married father of five and grandfather of two, Lee was a financial titan who was once dubbed the “envy of Wall Street” for his business savvy — and powerful friends.
“Tom was a constant presence,” said Hillary Clinton, a longtime Lee pal who was joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
“We’ve shared births and weddings and anniversaries, state dinners at the White House, lively parties from New York City to Martha’s Vineyard to the Hamptons
during times and ones,” she mourners.
Dr. Oz, speaking to The Post outside Lincoln Center, called the funeral service “one of the most elegant and beautiful events,” and described it as “an outpouring of love” for Lee.
Lee was the king of lucrative leveraged buyouts. At the height of his career, he invested $30 million to buy soft drink giant Snapple in 1992 — and flipped it just two years later by selling it to Quaker Oats for $1.7 billion.
In 1996, he teamed with Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital to buy credit reporting company TRW for $1.1 billion in a leveraged buyout and sold it for $1.7 billion just seven weeks later.
According to a source who knew Lee well, the billionaire lost about 60 pounds in the last nine months, telling people he had been on a crash diet. “He went from one extreme good tough told to another,” the source said.
Lee also was a major political contributor whose massive mansion in the trendy Hamptons famously provided a sanctuary for the Clintons after a bruising 2008 presidential primary.
“I was exhausted and disappointed and the first people who said, ‘Hey, come be with us’ were Tom and Ann,” Hillary Clinton said Monday. “We got away from it all at their beautiful home in the Hamptons.”