David Bonderman, the colorful yet publicity-shy co-founder of private equity titan TPG who became a billionaire by spearheading massive company takeovers, bailouts of foundering enterprises and splashy investments in startups, has died. He was 82.
Bonderman died on Dec. 11, according to a statement from his family and TPG. A cause of death wasn’t cited.
Bonderman was a leading member of a generation of financial entrepreneurs who built fledgling buyout shops into Wall Street powerhouses. Others include Henry Kravis, Steve Schwarzman and David Rubenstein.
TPG, the firm he started with Jim Coulter in 1992, had $239 billion of assets under management as of Sept. 30.
Bonderman had an eye for unconventional bets. “Returns tend to be better in places where either the troops are in the street, or the prices are low,” he said of his investing approach.
He drew skepticism with his first big deal in 1993, leading the $450 million recapitalization of Continental Airlines during its second bankruptcy. TPG — known then as Texas Pacific Group — netted a ninefold profit when it sold its stake in the airline.
Other unloved brands that drew TPG’s interest and money were airlines US Airways and America West, clothier J. Crew and music instrument maker Fender. As a venture investor, Bonderman and his firm made early and successful bets on Airbnb, Spotify Technology and Uber Technologies.
“David is a contrarian par excellence,” Clive Bode, a TPG partner, said in a 2016 video paying tribute to Bonderman’s corporate citizenship. “He likes complex, ridiculously treacherous transactions. Neither complexity nor difficulty dissuades him.”
In the case of Uber, Bonderman joined the board of the ride-hailing company in 2013 after his firm partnered with Google Ventures on a $258 million financing round. Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick requested TPG’s involvement so that Bonderman could help the company address a long list of regulatory challenges around the world, Brad Stone wrote in The Upstarts (2017).
Bonderman had a net worth of $4.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bonderman’s career path was winding and unconventional. Before entering finance, he was a lawyer who scored wins in landmark cases related to insider trading and historic preservation. He had traveled the world and learned multiple languages. Earlier, while in college, he worked as a security guard on the night shift at Seattle’s Space Needle.
Known as Bondo to his friends, he flouted the image of the sleek-suited financier, arriving at meetings in khakis and loud, mismatched socks.
He once holed up for weeks on a superyacht off the coast of Australia while authorities sought to question him over a $700 million tax bill. In 2004, he said comparing U.S. President George W. Bush to an oft-ridiculed predecessor, Millard Fillmore, was an insult — to Fillmore.
At a 2007 conference in Hong Kong, according to the Financial Times, he criticized the Japanese for being slow to make deals and added, “They hate us, but that’s OK because we hate them too.” Over objections from the Obama administration, Bonderman attended annual investment conferences in St. Petersburg hosted by Vladimir Putin in 2014 and 2015, following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.
In 2017, Bonderman resigned under pressure from Uber’s board after he cracked a sexist joke during a companywide meeting on an internal investigation into alleged sexual harassment within the company. The investigation resulted in Kalanick stepping down as CEO.
Bonderman said his comment “came across in a way that was the opposite of what I intended, but I understand the destructive effect it had, and I take full responsibility for that.”
TPG went public in 2022, following years of hints from Bonderman that it would, in an offering that valued the company at $9 billion.
Bonderman set up a family office, Wildcat Capital Management, located in New York. In one wager, the firm reaped a profit of at least $425 million when Gilead Sciences Inc. acquired a biotech company it had taken a stake in. Wildcat opened up to other wealthy investors in 2022.
Bonderman led founding ownership group of the Seattle Kraken, which joined the National Hockey League in 2021. The following year, his daughter, Samantha Holloway, became a co-owner and succeeded him as chair of the franchise’s executive committee. Bonderman also was part of the ownership syndicate of the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association.
He served on the governing bodies of the Wilderness Society and the Grand Canyon Trust, the University of Washington Foundation and the American Himalayan Foundation. Through his Wildcat Foundation, Bonderman supported anti-poaching and other wildlife conservation efforts in Africa.
With his wife, Laurie Michaels, a clinical psychologist and philanthropist, Bonderman had five children.
