BERNARD G. PALITZ

PALITZ--Bernard G., a leading financier of commercial equipment for almost a half-century, died of congestive heart failure on December 20, 2012 at his home in Manhattan. The eldest child of Clarence Y. and Ruth K. Palitz of New York City, Mr. Palitz was 88. When he retired from the finance business in 1996, he was Chairman of Financial Federal Corporation, which he co-founded with his brother, the late Clarence Y. Palitz, Jr. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the company was acquired by People's United Financial, Inc. in 2010. A keen collector and patron of the arts, Mr. Palitz sponsored many shows in New York City, including the Frans Hals and Vermeer and The Milkmaid exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art held in 2009 and 2011, and Michelangelo: The Man and the Myth at the Palitz Gallery in Syracuse University's Lubin House in 2008. Educated at the Ethical Culture and Fieldston schools in New York City, Mr. Palitz graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. His college years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied chemical engineering and business administration, were interrupted by World War II. By the fall of 1944 and the following winter, he was an infantryman in the U.S. Army on the front lines in France and Germany. His job was carrying fifty pound boxes of ammunition for machine guns. Seriously wounded in action, he rarely spoke about his wartime experiences. Mr. Palitz began his business career working for his father in 1947 at Credit America Corporation, a pioneer in the equipment finance field, which was sold to James Talcott, Inc. in 1958. Five years later, the Palitz brothers started their first publicly held company, Commercial Alliance Corporation, which they ran until 1984, when it was sold to First Interstate Bancorp. Mr. Palitz was a Trustee of the Worcester Museum, the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy, and was a member of MIT's Council for the Arts. He was also a benefactor of the schools he attended, as well as Syracuse University, Rockefeller University, and Haverford College, where he served on the college's Board of Managers. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Louise Beringer Palitz, his daughter, Anne Bucala, and son-in-law, Dr. Richard Bucala, his son, Gregory, and daughter-in-law, Susan Kane, and five grandchildren, Sam, Ben and Emma Palitz, and Nicole and Paul Bucala. No funeral services are planned. Donations in memory of Bernard Palitz can be made to the Trustees of Columbia University, c/o Dr. Donna Mancini, Medical Director of The Center for Advanced Cardiac Care and the Choudhrie Professor of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, 622 West 168th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10032.