TPG Capital (formerly Texas Pacific Group) is one of the largest private equity investment firms globally, focused on leveraged buyout, growth capital and leveraged recapitalization investments in distressed companies and turnaround situations. TPG also manages investment funds specializing in growth capital, venture capital, public equity, and debt investments. The firm invests in a broad range of industries including consumer/retail, media and telecommunications, industrials, technology, travel/leisure and health care.

The firm was founded in 1992 by David Bonderman, James Coulter and William S. Price III. Since inception, the firm has raised more than $50 billion of investor commitments across more than 18 private equity funds.^[1]

TPG is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas and San Francisco, California,.^[2] The company has additional offices in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.

Private equity funds[link]

TPG has historically relied primarily on private equity funds, pools of committed capital from pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, fund of funds, high net worth individuals, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors. As of the end of 2008, TPG had completed fundraising for over 20 funds with total investor commitments of over $50 billion.

The firm manages investment funds in a number of distinct strategies including:

• TPG's flagship leveraged buyout funds
• Venture capital funds, particularly focused on biotechnology investments
• Distressed debt and other credit strategies invested through a series of funds raised in 2007^[3]
• Asian and Latin American funds, including the firm's Newbridge and TPG Asia fund family
• Other private equity funds. This includes TPG's T3 Partners funds, which invest in technology focused deals alongside the firm's main buyout funds.^[4][5] TPG Star has a broad investment mandate including buyouts, venture capital and growth capital, however all of its investments are at the smaller end of the range, compared to TPG's traditional investments.^[6]

Source: Preqin ^[1]

History and notable Investments[link]

Founding[link]

The Texas Pacific Group, as it was originally known, was founded in 1992 by David Bonderman, James Coulter and William S. Price III. Prior to founding TPG, Bonderman and Coulter had worked for Robert M. Bass making leveraged buyout investments during the 1980s. In 1993, Coulter and Bonderman partnered with William S. Price III, who was Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development for GE Capital to complete the buyout of Continental Airlines.^[7] At the time, TPG was virtually alone in its conviction that there was an investment opportunity with the airline. The plan included bringing in a new management team, improving aircraft utilization and focusing on lucrative routes. By 1998, TPG had generated an annual internal rate of return of 55% on its investment.

Texas Pacific Group in the late 1990s[link]

In 1997, TPG completed fundraising for its second private equity fund, with over $2.5 billion of investor commitments. In June 1996, TPG acquired the AT&T Paradyne unit, a multimedia communications business, from Lucent Technologies for $175 million.^[8] Also in 1996, TPG invested in Beringer Wine, Ducati Motorcycles and Del Monte Foods.

TPG's most notable 1997 investment was its takeover of J. Crew. TPG acquired an 88% stake in the retailer for approximately $500 million,^[9] however the investment struggled due to the relatively high purchase price paid relative to the company's earnings.^[10] The company was able to complete a turnaround beginning in 2002 and complete an initial public offering in 2006.^[11]

The following year, in 1998, TPG led an investor group in a minority investment in Oxford Health Plans. TPG and its co-investors invested $350 million in a convertible preferred stock that can be converted into 22.1% of Oxford.^[12] The company completed a buyback of the TPG's PIPE convertible in 2000 and would ultimately be acquired by UnitedHealth Group in 2004.^[13]

As the decade came to a close, TPG was once again fundraising, for its third private equity fund. This time, however TPG was raising not only a new buyout fund, but also a new fund, T3 Partners that would invest alongside the main fund in technology oriented investments. In 1999, TPG invested in Piaggio S.p.A, Bally International (including Bally Shoe), and ON Semiconductor.

TPG has also become recognized for its dedicated operations group that has become a major part of the process from investment to sale in many of their portfolio companies. The group is led by Dick Boyce and involves itself in tricky turnaround situations, operations improvement and other tasks that help create value in the company. Other major private equity firms have begun to develop operations group as well, attempting to recreate the model at TPG but most have had trouble creating as expansive a program.

Texas Pacific Group in the early 2000s[link]

In 2000, TPG and Leonard Green & Partners invested $200 million to acquire Petco, the pet supplies retailer as part of a $600 million buyout.^[14] Within two years they sold most of it in a public offering that valued the company at $1 billion. Petco’s market value more than doubled by the end of 2004 and the firms would ultimately realize a gain of $1.2 billion. Then, in 2006, the private equity firms took Petco private again for $1.68 billion.^[15]

That same year, in 2000, TPG completed the controversial acquisition of Gemplus SA, one of the leading smart card manufacturers. TPG won a struggle with the company's founder, Marc Lassus, for control of the company.^[16] Also in 2000, TPG completed an investment in Seagate Technology.

In 2001, TPG acquired Telenor Media, a Norwegian phone-directory company, for $660m, and shortly thereafter acquired a controlling interest in the third largest silicon-wafer maker MEMC Electronic Materials.^[17]

In July 2002, TPG, together with Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, announced the high profile $2.3 billion leveraged buyout of Burger King from Diageo.^[18] However, in November the original transaction collapsed, when Burger King failed to meet certain performance targets. In December 2002, TPG and its co-investors agreed on a reduced $1.5 billion purchase price for the investment.^[19] The TPG consortium had support from Burger King's franchisees, who controlled approximately 92% of Burger King restaurants at the time of the transaction. Under its new owners, Burger King underwent a major brand overhaul including the use of The Burger King character in advertising. In February 2006, Burger King announced plans for an initial public offering.^[20]

TPG's San Francisco offices at 345 California Street

In November 2003, TPG provided a proposal to buy Portland General Electric from Enron. However, concerns about debt and local politics led to Oregon's Public Utilities Commission regulators to deny permission for the purchase March 10, 2005.Oregon Public Utility Commission (March 10, 2005). "ORDER NO. 05-114" (PDF). http://apps.puc.state.or.us/orders/2005ords/05%2D114.pdf. Retrieved 2008-02-01. 

TPG ventured into the film business in late 2004 in the major leveraged buyout of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. A consortium led by TPG and Sony completed the $4.81 billion buyout of the film studio. The consortium also included media-focused firms Providence Equity Partners and Quadrangle Group as well as DLJ Merchant Banking Partners.^[21] The transaction, which was announced in September 2004, was completed in early 2005.

Also in 2005, TPG was one of seven private equity firms involved in the buyout of SunGard in a transaction valued at $11.3 billion. TPG's partners in the acquisition were Silver Lake Partners, Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Providence Equity Partners, and The Blackstone Group. This represented the largest leveraged buyout completed since the takeover of RJR Nabisco at the end of the 1980s leveraged buyout boom. Also, at the time of its announcement, SunGard would be the largest buyout of a technology company in history, a distinction it would cede to the buyout of Freescale Semiconductor. The SunGard transaction is also notable in the number of firms involved in the transaction, the largest club deal completed to that point. The involvement of seven firms in the consortium was criticized by investors in private equity who considered cross-holdings among firms to be generally unattractive.^[22][23]

TPG and 2006-2007 Buyout Boom[link]

In early 2006, as TPG was completing fundraising for its fifth private equity fund and the buyout boom was entering full swing, TPG co-founder Bill Price announced that he would scale back his work at the firm to focus on personal pursuits including his holdings in wine vineyards.^[24]

On December 1, 2006, it was announced TPG and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts had been exploring the possibility of a record $100 billion leveraged buyout of the second-largest retailer in the U.S. Home Depot.^[25] Although this massive buyout was never actually completed, TPG was a leading investor during the 2006-2008 buyout boom, completing some of the largest transactions in this period.

In early 2007, the firm, officially changed its name to TPG Capital, rebranding all of its funds across different geographies. The firm's Asian funds, which had historically been managed by TPG Newbridge, a joint venture with Blum Capital.^[47]

TPG and the Credit Crisis[link]

On April 7, 2008, TPG leads a $7 billion investment in Washington Mutual. On September 25, 2008, Washington Mutual is taken over by the government costing TPG a 1.35 Billion dollar investment.

On 12 March 2010, Gretchen Morgensen in the New York Times discussed TPG's role as a private equity investor in Greek mobile phone operator Wind Hellas, formerly TIM Hellas, which filed for bankruptcy protection late last year.[1] Morgensen raises some interesting questions about the circumstances in which TPG and fellow private equity investors Apax Partners of London redeemed a significant quantity of "convertible preferred equity certificates" held by them to repay their own "deeply subordinated shareholder loans" during a period in which a significant and apparently unexplained spike occurred in the market value of the certificates.

Post Recession Activity[link]

On July 13, 2011, affiliates of TPG Capital acquired PRIMEDIA for approximately $525 million, or $7.10 per share in cash.^[48]

Newbridge Capital[link]

In 1994, TPG, Blum Capital and ACON Investments created Newbridge Capital, a joint-venture to invest in emerging markets, particularly Asia and later Latin America. At its peak, Newbridge managed over $3.2 billion. Newbridge was headquartered alongside TPG in Fort Worth and San Francisco with investment offices across the Asia-Pacific region in Hong Kong, Melbourne, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo. In 1995, Newbridge also ventured into Latin America, raising a $300 million fund and then a follow up $150 million fund in 1996. After its debut funds in the mid 1990s, Newbridge did not continue to focus on Latin America.

Since its founding, Newbridge developed a specialization in five broad industry groups: financial services, technology and telecom, healthcare, consumer, and industrials. Newbridge was involved in a number of the largest and most notable private equity transactions in Asia including:

• Shenzhen Development Bank - the first control purchase of a Chinese national bank by a foreign entity since 1949
• Korea First Bank - the first foreign acquisition of a South Korean bank
• Hanaro Telecom - a major Asian proxy contest, that was the largest at that time
• Matrix Laboratories - the largest private equity transaction in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, to that point

In the early 2000s, TPG assumed full ownership and control over the Newbridge joint venture, renaming the firm TPG Newbridge. At the beginning of 2007, when the firm officially changed its name from Texas Pacific Group to TPG Capital, TPG Newbridge's Asian funds were also rebranded as the TPG Asia Funds.

TPG remained active in Asia in 2008. On August 4, TPG, along with Global Infrastructure Partners, offered to buy Asciano Limited for AUD 2.9 billion in an unsuccessful attempt to complete an unsolicited takeover. On October 31, 2008 TPG completed the purchase of a 35% interest in P.T. Bumi Resources, from its previous owner Bakrie & Brothers, Indonesia, for $1.3 billion.

Recognition[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Parts of this article (those related to the "Recognition" section) are outdated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Please see the talk page for more information. (January 2009)

During 2005 and 2006, TPG was recognized by several members of the media for its performance. The firm was called

• "Firm of the Year" by Buyouts Magazine.^{[citation needed]};
• "Best Global Firm of the Year" by Euromoney Magazine^{[citation needed]}
• "North American Large Cap Private Equity Firm of the Year" by Global Finance Magazine^{[citation needed]}

TPG-Newbridge was named "Best Firm of the Year" by the Asia Venture Forum.^{[citation needed]}

Notable employees[link]

• Kevin Rollins - former President & CEO of Dell Computers
• Bernard Attali, former chairman of Air France and brother of Jacques Attali
• Vivek Paul, former Vice Chairman of Wipro Technologies and CEO of its global information technology, product engineering, and business process services segments
• Mary Ma ^[49] - Former CFO of Lenovo, and was listed in the top ten of the Fortune "50 Most Powerful Women" in 2005 and 2006.

References[link]

External links[link]

Official website

	Companies portal
	Dallas-Fort Worth portal

v t e Private equity and venture capital investment firms Investment strategy Venture · Growth · Mezzanine · Secondaries · Leveraged buyout History History of private equity and venture capital · Early history of private equity · Private equity in the 1980s · Private equity in the 1990s · Private equity in the 2000s Investors Corporations · Institutional Investors · Pension funds · Insurance companies · Endowments · Investment Banks · Merchant banks · Fund of funds · High net worth individuals · Angel investors · Family offices · Sovereign wealth funds Private equity firms · Venture capital firms · Portfolio companies

v t e Largest private equity investment firms 3i Group · AAC Capital Partners · Advent International · AlpInvest Partners · American Capital · Apax Partners · Apollo Global Management · Ares Management · Bain Capital · BC Partners · Berkshire Partners · The Blackstone Group · Bridgepoint Capital · Candover · The Carlyle Group · CCMP Capital · Cerberus Capital Management · Charterhouse Capital Partners · Cinven · Clayton, Dubilier & Rice · CVC Capital Partners · Doughty Hanson & Co · EQT Partners · First Reserve Corporation · Fortress Investment Group · General Atlantic · Goldman Sachs Capital Partners · GTCR Golder Rauner · Hellman & Friedman · Kohlberg Kravis Roberts · Trilantic Capital Partners · Leonard Green & Partners · Madison Dearborn Partners · Nordic Capital · Oak Investment Partners · Oaktree Capital Management · Onex · Teachers' Private Capital · Pacific Equity Partners · PAI Partners · Permira · Providence Equity Partners · Silver Lake Partners · Summit Partners · Sun Capital Partners · TA Associates · Terra Firma Capital Partners · Thomas H. Lee Partners · TPG Capital · Warburg Pincus · Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe Private equity · Private equity firms · Venture capital firms · Portfolio companies

Richard Schifter (born July 31, 1923) is a United States lawyer who was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1985 to 1992.

Biography[link]

Richard Schifter was born in Vienna on July 31, 1923 into a Jewish family. (His family was in Vienna after having been displaced from Poland.^[1]) In the wake of the Anschluss by which the First Austrian Republic was annexed by Nazi Germany on March 12/13, 1938, Schifter's family sought permission for all of them to emigrate to the USA, but Richard Schifter was the only member of the family able to obtain a United States visa. This tragic situation arose since he had been born in Austria, and therefore came under the USA. Austrian immigration quota, which was not full. His parents, since born in Poland, were in the Polish quota, in a long queue which was 3 years long. ^[2] He immigrated to the United States without his family in Dec. 1938, at age 15. ^[3] In the U.S., he studied at CCNY, the College of the City of New York, where he received a B.A. in 1943.^[4]

Schifter then joined the United States Army, becoming one of the Ritchie Boys, young Jewish German refugees whom the U.S. Army trained in the art of psychological warfare.^[5] Most importantly, since they all were fluent German-speakers, all the Ritchie Boys were trained primarily in all aspects of Intelligence work. This was with the specific intent that they be involved in interrogating captured German soldiers of all ranks as well as civilians; and in gathering and interpreting captured German documents, both during the war and afterwards.

He was present for the Normandy landings.^[6] and did intelligence work in the field. After the Battle of the Bulge, he was stationed in Aachen and tasked with interviewing the civilian population, thus producing one of the first studies of daily life under the Third Reich.^[7] He searched for his family after the war, but they had all been killed in the Holocaust.^[8] He was discharged from the Army in 1946, but stayed in Allied-occupied Germany working for the U.S. military government as a civilian until 1948.^{[9] [10]}

Schifter enrolled in Yale Law School in 1948, receiving his LL.B. in 1951.^[11] After law school, Schifter joined the law firm of Riegelman, Strasser, Schwarz & Spiegelberg (which is today Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson).^[12] Following the death of Felix S. Cohen in 1953, Schifter, along with fellow attorney Arthur Lazarus, Jr., became the main attorneys for the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation in their repeated disputes with the United States government.^[13] Schifter practiced law at Fried, Frank until the 1980s, as one of the foremost practitioners of federal Indian law in the country.^[14] He also served on the President's Task Force on American Indians from 1966 to 1967.^[15]

From 1981 to 1982, Schifter was U.S. representative to the UNESCO Committee on Conventions and Recommendations.^[16] He was also an alternate U.S. representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights 1981-82.^[17] From 1983 to 1985, he was the United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.^[18] He was also Deputy United States Representative to the United Nations Security Council with the rank of Ambassador from 1984 to 1985.^[19]

In 1985, President of the United States Ronald Reagan nominated Schifter to be Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. After Senate Confirmation, Schifter served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from October 31, 1985 until April 3, 1992. Schifter's views on U.S. foreign policy have been described as neoconservative.^[20]

After the election of Bill Clinton, some sources reported that Clinton would name Schifter United States Ambassador to Israel.^[21] However, apparently not wanting to be too closely identified with the Israel lobby in the United States, Clinton instead made Schifter a special assistant to the United States National Security Council.^[22] He served in this capacity until 2001.^[23]

Since leaving government in 2001, Schifter has headed the American Jewish International Relations Institute and the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeastern Europe.^[24] He has also been a trustee of the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies.^[25]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The American Jewish International Relations Institute Richard Schifter is the Chairman of the Board of AJIRI

Barry Stuart Sternlicht (born 1960) is the founder, chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, the private investment firm focused on global real estate, energy, infrastructure and securities trading. He is also chairman of Starwood Property Trust, now the largest commercial mortgage REIT in the United States traded on the NYSE.^[1] He previously formed Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide and served as its CEO from 1995 to 2005.

Career[link]

Sternlicht launched Starwood Capital Group in 1991 with $52 million. His goal was to buy up multi-family apartment buildings that were being auctioned off in the government’s bailout of the savings and loan crisis.^[2] In 1993, Sternlicht sold the portfolio to real estate magnate Sam Zell for more than 20 percent of Zell’s Equity Residential Properties Trust. When Zell took the company public that year, Starwood saw a 100 percent return. Sternlicht later began to purchase hotel sites, focusing on combining his passions of architecture and real estate finance.

Starwood Capital Group today ranks as one of the largest and most successful investment firms focused on real estate. For the past twenty years, it has structured investment transactions with an asset value exceeding $40 billion.^[3] Starwood's funds have invested in more than 40,000 apartment units, more than 1000 hotels, over 22 million square feet of office properties, 15 million square feet of retail and over 20,000 acres of land in residential subdivisions. Today the firm manages approximately $12 billion of investor capital on behalf of its high net worth and institutional partners.

From 1995 through early 2005, Sternlicht was Chairman and CEO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., a company he founded in 1995. Sternlicht has been credited as a dynamic and innovative hotel leader, creating new products and programs with immediate global appeal. He has been named the King of Hotels,^[4] creating W Hotels, perhaps the world’s most successful “boutique” brand. Some of his other innovations include the creation of Westin’s “Heavenly Bed,” “Heavenly Bath,” “Westin Workout,” and Starwood Preferred Guest, the world’s first frequent traveler program with “no blackouts.” ^[5]

Awards[link]

In 2010, Sternlicht was named Executive of the Year and Investor of the Year by Commercial Property Executive.^[6] Global peer-voting polls sponsored by Private Equity Real Estate magazine named Sternlicht as the Global Industry Figure of the Year and as North American Industry Figure of the Year in 2010, his second consecutive year in this category.^[7] In 2004, he was named America’s Best Lodging CEO by Institutional Investor magazine.^[8] Sternlicht was inducted into the Interior Design Magazine Hall of Fame.^[9]

Personal[link]

Sternlicht is a trustee of his alma mater, Brown University. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Estée Lauder Companies, Baccarat, National Golf, Mammoth Mountain, Ellen Tracy, Field & Stream, the International Advisory Board of Eurohypo Bank and Advisory Board of Zelnick Media. He serves as Vice Chairman of the Robin Hood Foundation and is on the boards of the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA), the Dreamland Community Theatre, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s National Leadership Advocacy Program, and the Business Committee for the Arts. He is also an investor in Plum TV.

Sternlicht was born in New York City in 1960 and graduated magna cum laude, with honors, from Brown University in 1982. He received his MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School in 1986.^[10] Prior to founding Starwood in 1991, he worked for JMB Realty Corporation.

He lives in Greenwich, Connecticut and owns homes on Nantucket and at the Yellowstone Club.

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.starwoodcapital.com/Team.aspx?menuid=10
2. ^ http://www.starwoodcapital.com/Overview.aspx
3. ^ http://www.starwoodcapital.com/Overview.aspx
4. ^ http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/12/08/234901/index.htm
5. ^ http://www.starwoodcapital.com/Team.aspx?menuid=10
6. ^ http://www.cpexecutive.com/business-management/managementstrategies/sternlicht-named-cpe-executive-of-the-year-3/
7. ^ http://www.perenews.com/Article.aspx?article=59798&hashID=372F748D6DD59A5155572DD865D0F96B92A80414
8. ^ http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/Article/1026682/Search/The-best-CEOs-in-America.html?Keywords=barry+sternlicht
9. ^ http://www.interiordesign.net/hof/11271-Barry_Sternlicht.php
10. ^ http://www.starwoodcapital.com/Team.aspx?menuid=10

See also[link]

• real estate development
• Starwood Capital Group