THOMAS LEE

1944 - 2023

LEE--Thomas H. Pioneer of the Private Equity and Leveraged Buyout Industries, Dies at 78. The family of Thomas H. Lee is saddened to announce the passing of their beloved father, husband, grandfather, brother and uncle. To the financial media, "Tom" Lee, age 78, was a pioneer and lion of the private equity and leveraged buyout industries, with the purchase and subsequent sale of Snapple Beverages and Warner Music among his many successful transactions. But he was also known as a generous philanthropist and trustee of many organizations, including Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Brandeis University, Cardozo Law School, Harvard University, the Intrepid Museum Foundation, NYU Langone Medical Center and Rockefeller University. Mr. Lee received an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College in 1965. Mr. Lee formed Lee Equity Partners, LLC, in 2006 and was Chairman of the firm. He was also Chairman of Thomas H. Lee Capital, LLC, a private investment vehicle and Chairman of the Board of AGL Credit Management LP, an SEC registered investment advisor specializing in bank loan-based investments. Mr. Lee previously served as Chairman and CEO of Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P., which he founded in 1974. Over the past 46 years, Mr. Lee has been responsible for investing over $15 billion of capital in hundreds of transactions. From 1966 through 1974, Mr. Lee was with First National Bank of Boston where he directed the bank's high technology lending group from 1968 to 1974 and became a Vice President in 1973. Prior to 1966, Mr. Lee was a securities analyst in the institutional research department of L.F. Rothschild in New York. Mr. Lee served as a director of numerous public and private companies, including Aimbridge Hospitality, General Nutrition Companies, Inc., K-MAC Enterprises, Metris Companies, MidCap Financial, Papa Murphy's, Playtex Products, Inc., Snapple Beverage Corp., The Edelman Financial Group, Vail Resorts, Inc., Vertis Holdings, Inc., Warner Music Group Corp., and Wyndham International, Inc., among others. As successful as he was in business, Mr. Lee was just as eager to support causes he believed in, including education and the arts. In 1996, he donated $22 million to his alma mater Harvard University, one of the school's largest gifts ever from a living alumnus. "I've been lucky to make some money. I'm more than happy to give some of it back," he said at the time. The university earmarked $4 million of the donation for the Thomas H. Lee '65 Scholarship Fund, which Mr. Lee established in 1985 to provide financial aid to students. He received the UJA-Federation's award named after Jack Nash, a financier who helped create the modern hedge fund business, for his lifetime of philanthropy in 2014. The following year in 2015, Mr. Lee and his wife Ann Tenenbaum were honored by Lincoln Center with the Distinguished Service Award. At the event, Mr. Lee spoke about how he first found his way to the Lincoln Center board 20 years earlier. He recalled that he was in Leonard Lauder's living room and the opera singer Beverly Sills encouraged him to get involved. Mr. Lee said she told him: "You're going to give Lincoln Center a lot of your money, a lot of your time and a lot of your attention." Tom loved to walk; long before the pedometer was invented, he could be seen walking circles around Manhattan, East Hampton, the squares of Savannah, Georgia, and the intercoastal waterway of South Florida. And for those fortunate enough to walk with him he was either listening closely to your story, prepared to offer advice and perspective, or in many cases simply take the edge off with a sample or two from his encyclopedia of jokes. Impact is the single best word to describe Tom's almost 79-year journey. The difference he made in individuals' lives by caring, engaging, listening, talking, walking and doing will stand the test of time and generations. In addition to his dear wife Ann, Mr. Lee is survived by their three children: Jesse, Nathan and Rosalie; and his sons Zachary, his wife Margo and their daughter Phoebe; and his son Robert, his wife Nadia Berenstein and their daughter Nona. Other survivors include Mr. Lee's brothers Jonathan and Richard Lee, as well as many nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made to The Prostate Cancer Foundation and/or Jazz at Lincoln Center. Links for the following donations can be found at: www.frankecampbell.com