Industry pioneer Thomas H. Lee has died at 78, his colleagues and family confirmed late Thursday.
Lee was among the first to engineer leveraged buyouts: using debt borrowed against the value of the asset being acquired to finance deals. His Boston firm’s acquisition and sale of Snapple Beverage Corp. in the early 1990s was legendary, producing a more than 30-fold gain in about two years.
After working as a bank lending officer in Boston, Lee founded Thomas H. Lee Partners in 1974 and ran the firm until 2006. Along the way, he gave to many charities and nonprofit institutions, including his alma mater, Harvard University, as well as to museums and arts organizations, according to his family.
He formed Lee Equity Partners in 2006, based in New York, and was its chairman.
“The family is extremely saddened by Tom’s death,” said his friend Michael Sitrick. “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.”
