David Bonderman, the media-shy billionaire who co-founded the $239 billion alternative asset management giant TPG, has died at the age of 82.
Bonderman is credited with transforming the company from a three-person investing office to a publicly-traded force with a market value of $24.3 billion.
“David was a private equity pioneer, legal scholar, conservationist, and citizen of the world and his legacy will long endure with those lucky enough to have met him,” TPG said in a statement.
Bonderman got into the world of investing through Robert “Bob” Bass, who asked him to move to Fort Worth, Texas, to help manage his family investment business.
A lawyer by training, Bonderman reportedly told Bass: “Bob, I don’t know anything about investing,” to which Bass replied, “Neither do I, but we can figure it out together.”
At the Bass Family Office, he met Jim Coulter, who went on to be his business and investing partner for more than 38 years.
In 1992, they left Bass and made a bold bid to acquire Continental Airlines out of bankruptcy. A year later, Bonderman, Coulter and Bill Price founded TPG, turning a $66 million investment into a life-changing deal that yielded ten times more in profit.
Today, TPG boasts of having a global workforce of over 1,800, with 28 offices around the world, and investments across a range of sectors including technology, healthcare, real estate and consumer.
The private equity giant went public in early 2022 in a strong market debut that valued it at over $10 billion.
“I first met David in the early 1990s just before he founded TPG with Jim Coulter. We worked together on a deal for America West, and through the 1990s and into the early 2000s, as TPG grew into a major player, I continued to do more business with him,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said in a statement.
“He had extraordinary business judgment … but more than that, he became a great friend and personal mentor of mine.”
Illustrious career
He was born in Los Angeles in 1942 and was also the owner of the National Hockey League’s 32nd expansion franchise, the Seattle Kraken.
“His eye for detail, keen interest in people, ability to learn quickly and adapt, and even his love for music, travel, and fun are the foundation of TPG,” the buyout giant said.
Bonderman served on the boards of more than 80 corporate firms throughout his career, including automaker General Motors at the request of the US government, air carrier Ryanair and Kite Pharmaceutical.
Bonderman, fondly called “Bondo” by his friends and colleagues, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1966.
While at the illustrious university, where he was also a member of the Harvard Law Review, Bonderman was awarded the Sheldon Fellowship, which sponsored him to travel outside the U.S. for a year of research and discovery.
After leaving Harvard, he briefly served as an assistant professor at Tulane University School of Law before moving to Washington to be a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General in the civil rights division from 1968 to 1969, during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson.
In that period, Bonderman successfully litigated many cases involving racial discrimination in the southern United States.
He later joined the law firm Arnold & Porter in Washington, where he successfully represented Raymond Dirks before the US Supreme Court in one of the most important and landmark insider trading cases in history.
He won several accolades, including the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement and the Woodrow Wilson Award of Corporate Citizenship.
Bonderman, whose net worth Forbes pegs at roughly $7.4 billion, was a passionate lover of music and sports. He was a member of the board and a strong financial supporter of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
He had been a controlling stockholder of TPG and served on its board since its inception.
He was also a member of the boards of The Wilderness Society, World Wildlife Fund, American Himalayan Foundation and the Grand Canyon Trust.
Reuters
