Thomas H. Lee, Billionaire Who Led Warner Music Buyout in 2004, Dies at 78
thewrap.comsaid in a statement. “While the world knew him as one of the pioneers in the private-equity business and a successful businessman, we knew him as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, sibling, friend and philanthropist who always put others’ needs before his own.
Our hearts are broken.”The New York Post reported that Lee was found dead in his Manhattan office, suffering from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.The investor founded his namesake firm, Thomas H.
Lee Partners, in Boston in 1974, using $150,000 from an inheritance and a loan from his brother. His concept was well ahead of the leveraged buyout heyday of the 1980s.
These buyouts are unique in the amount of debt that’s taken on to purchase a company, which is often then tasked with repaying it.Often seen chewing a cigar around the office, he sometimes drew comparisons to the fictional private-equity banker Thomas Crown portrayed in 1999’s “The Thomas Crown Affair,” Businessweek reported in 2005.The billionaire, who preferred the moniker “Tomcat” because he had “nine different lives,” was famed for his takeover of beverage maker Snapple in 1992.
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