Private equity pioneer Theodore Forstmann loses cancer battle

Theodore Forstmann, a Wall Street tycoon and private equity pioneer seen by some as a real life Gordon Gekko, has died from brain cancer at the age of 71.

It was Forstmann who all-but invented the concept of leveraged buyouts - taking over companies with borrowed debt.

Famously, he coined a phrase that came to stand for much of the finance world's most aggressive behaviour, the words being turned into the title of a book and later film.

He was playing golf with Richard Gelb, the then chairman of Bristol Myers in the 1980s who asked what the surge in debt-led takeovers meant.
Forstmann replied: "It means the barbarians are at the gate. And they'll be coming for you next."

Barbarians at The Gate became a book and a film about the notorious takeover battle for RJR Nabisco. Forstmann actually lost this bid to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, though they were later seen to have overpaid.

Forstmann was the senior founding partner of investment firm Forstmann Little & Co, a firm that took over and then re-sold dozens of companies including Dr. Pepper, baseball card maker Topps, Gulfstream Aerospace and Ziff-Davis Publishing.

In a 1996 interview Forstmann said his interest in deal-making was sparked in childhood, while reading a biography of Howard Hughes. "This guy loved doing deals," Forstmann said of Hughes.

Forstmann was an ardent believer in free markets and a Republican Party supporter. He was also a noted man-about-town, dating celebrities including Elizabeth Hurley and Padma Lakshmi, the TV host and cookbook author. He never married.

Forstmann was diagnosed with a malignant glioma earlier this year. He lived in Manhattan.