NEW BILLIONAIRES: A BAKER’S DOZEN
IT’S BOOM TIMES IN PRIVATE EQUITY, AND THANKS TO A QUIET FLURRY OF GENERAL-PARTNERSHIP-STAKE SALES, NEW BILLIONAIRES ARE IN BLOOM.
SAMI MNAYMNEH, 58
H.I.G. CAPITAL, MIAMI
ASSETS: $34 BIL NET WORTH: $4 BIL A former managing director at Blackstone, Mnaymneh started the firm in 1993 with Tony Tamer, a former partner at Bain. Masters at buying medium-size businesses like Jenny Craig and Mississippi sausage maker Southern Quality Meats, many of which produce huge returns. The duo also runs a large global credit business and publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance.
TONY TAMER, 62
H.I.G. CAPITAL, MIAMI
ASSETS: $34 BIL NET WORTH: $4 BIL A graduate of Rutgers, with a master’s in electrical engineering and computer science from Stanford and an M.B.A. from Harvard. Lebanon-born Tamer and his wife, an MIT graduate, are active philanthropists. Endowed the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School in 2015.
BARRY STERNLICHT, 58
STARWOOD CAPITAL, MIAMI
ASSETS: $60 BIL NET WORTH: $3.1 BIL Specializing in real estate investments, Sternlicht founded Starwood in 1991 and later the W hotel chain and Starwood Property Trust, one of the biggest mortgage REITs. After many years in Connecticut, Sternlicht moved his firm to Miami in 2018.
STEVEN KLINSKY, 63
NEW MOUNTAIN CAPITAL, NEW YORK CITY
ASSETS: $20 BIL NET WORTH: $3 BIL After earning a J.D./M.B.A. from Harvard, Klinsky cofounded Goldman Sachs’ leveraged buyout business in 1981 and then spent years at white-shoe buyout firm Forstmann Little. In 1999, he founded New Mountain Capital, which specializes in midsize companies. Its May IPO of biopharma services company Avantor produced a multibillion-dollar windfall.
JOSÉ E. FELICIANO, 46
CLEARLAKE CAPITAL, SANTA MONICA, CA
ASSETS: $10 BIL NET WORTH: $2.1 BIL A Puerto Rican who studied at Princeton on scholarship and worked for financial firms like Goldman Sachs and Tennenbaum Capital. Started firm with Behdad Eghbali in 2006. Clearlake focuses on three seemingly unrelated sectors—software, industrials and consumer services. Prominent investments include Sage Automotive and Unifrax.
BEHDAD EGHBALI, 43
CLEARLAKE CAPITAL, SANTA MONICA, CA
ASSETS: $10 BIL NET WORTH: $2 BIL Iranian-born Eghbali may be the world’s youngest private equity billionaire. He started his investment career at TPG Capital, the Texas buyout firm founded by David Bonderman. He also spent some time working in business development for Turbolinux, a software company focused on the Japanese market.
SCOTT KAPNICK, 60
HPS INVESTMENT PARTNERS, NEW YORK CITY
ASSETS: $55 BIL NET WORTH: $1.4 BIL Formerly CEO of Highbridge Capital, the hedge fund and credit manager owned by JPMorgan. Kapnick started at Goldman Sachs, where he rose to co-head of investment banking and co-CEO of Goldman Sachs International. He left before the financial crisis and joined Highbridge in 2007 after its sale to JPMorgan to build a credit business. In 2016, JPMorgan divested HPS. Assets have since ballooned.
EGON DURBAN, 46
SILVER LAKE, MENLO PARK, CA
ASSETS: $43 BIL NET WORTH: $1.2 BIL One of four managing partners who now run the firm, which specializes in tech investments and manages $43 billion. Durban is best known for orchestrating high-profile deals for Dell, Motorola Solutions and Pivotal Software. Was a founding principal of the firm in 1999.
KENNETH HAO, 51
SILVER LAKE, MENLO PARK, CA
ASSETS: $43 BIL NET WORTH: $1.2 BIL Hao expanded the tech private equity firm into key Asian markets by starting offices in China and Japan. He led Silver Lake’s profitable investment in Alibaba Group. Hao joined Silver Lake in 2000 after spending nearly a decade at San Francisco investment bank Hambrecht & Quist.
MIKE BINGLE, 47
SILVER LAKE, MENLO PARK, CA
ASSETS: $43 BIL NET WORTH: $1.2 BIL Joined firm in 2000, after stints at Apollo Global and Goldman Sachs. Within a decade became co-head of its North American operations. He helped close deals for Ameritrade, Virtu Financial, Datek Online, SoFi and Ancestry.com.
GREG MONDRE, 45
SILVER LAKE, MENLO PARK, CA
ASSETS: $43 BIL NET WORTH: $1.2 BIL Joined Silver Lake in 1999. He has done deals for Sabre Corp., Vantage Data Centers, UGS Corp., GoDaddy and Motorola Solutions. He first started doing tech private equity deals at TPG and also worked at Goldman Sachs.
LAWRENCE GOLUB, 60
GOLUB CAPITAL, NEW YORK CITY
ASSETS: $30 BIL NET WORTH: $1.1 BIL Founder of Golub Capital, which claims it received no tax benefit from its stake sale. A former banker with stints at Allen & Co., Wasserstein Perella and Bankers Trust, Golub founded Golub Capital in 1994 as a traditional leveraged buyout firm. In 2001, he pivoted and turned the firm into a lender, mostly to other private equity firms like Vista Equity and Thoma Bravo. Since the crisis, assets have grown fifteenfold.
DAVID GOLUB, 57
GOLUB CAPITAL, NEW YORK CITY
ASSETS: $30 BIL NET WORTH: $1.1 BIL Joined brother Lawrence in 2003 at Golub Capital, which says it received no tax benefit from its stake sale. He’s now CEO of the firm’s publicly traded Golub Capital BDC. After graduating from Harvard, Golub got a master’s in philosophy from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and an M.B.A. from Stanford. He was the first chairman and a longtime director of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.