Thomas Lee, private-equity pioneer, is dead at age 78

Thomas H. Lee, a privateequity investor famed for orchestrating the takeover of Snapple in the 1990s, has died, a family spokesperson said Thursday.

The billionaire Lee, 78, founded his namesake Boston company in 1974, far before the heyday of so-called leveraged buyouts. He and his contemporaries made their mark borrowing heavily and using the funds to push around — and acquire — midsize companies.

The Snapple deal, in 1992, was emblematic of how lucrative the approach could be. Thomas H. Lee Partners bought the beverage company for $135 million and sold it to a competitor, Quaker Oats, just two years later for $1.7 billion.

“Tom was an extraordinary individual ... a pioneer in private equity who became an industry icon,” Scott Sperling, a co-CEO of Thomas H. Lee Partners, wrote in an email Thursday night. “He was an incredibly gracious and generous man who was committed to his family and community.”

A Harvard University graduate, Lee was first a securities analyst and later a banker before starting his company roughly a decade into his career. Though his company never became as famous as rivals like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts or Drexel Burnham Lambert, Lee had an enviable track record. He invested some $15 billion through hundreds of transactions over his career, his family said.

Among his best-known buyouts was the 2003 acquisition of Warner Music from an ailing Time Warner. The move made headlines, if not profits. Lee's investor consortium bought the company for $2.6 billion, but took it public a year later for a shade less.

Not long after, the company was forced to completely write off its investment in the collapsed commodities broker Refco, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

Lee stepped down from his company in 2006 amid reported disagreements with its executives. He remained a prominent philanthropist in New York City.

He also continued to invest under a new shingle, giving credence to the nickname he assigned himself: Lee went by Tomcat, he said at a 2014 event, because he had “nine different lives.”