Lionel Pincus

Pincus was born to a Jewish family[6] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry (d. 1949)[7] and Theresa Celia (née Levit, d. 1982)[8] Pincus.[1] His grandparents were Jewish[6] immigrants from Russia and Poland.[9] After being educated at The Hill School,[10] he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1953.[1][11] His family had apparel retailing and real estate businesses; rather than join those businesses, he pursued an MBA at Columbia Business School, graduating in 1956.[1][12]

Pincus joined Ladenburg Thalmann, an investment banking firm, in 1955, and became a partner in the firm at age 29.[9] He formed Lionel I. Pincus & Co., Inc., a financial consultancy, in 1964.[1][12][13] The following year, he joined the board of directors of E.M. Warburg & Co., founded in 1939 by Eric Warburg, and in 1966, the two firms merged.[9][13] The company was renamed to E.M. Warburg Pincus in 1970,[9] and to Warburg Pincus LLC in 2001.[14]

Pincus is a "pioneer of the venture capital megafund",[12] raising billions of dollars to invest in companies across industries. The money he raised came from, among other sources, blue chip pension funds, such as AT&T, IBM, GE, Pacific Telesis, and GM, state pension funds, and college endowments.[9][12][15]

An early venture capital fund, EMW Associates, was organized by Pincus in 1970, with $20 million in capital, about half of which came from officers of the company.[16] This was followed by successively larger funds; a $2 billion fund organized by Warburg Pincus in 1989 was described as "five times larger than any other venture partnership".[17] A later fund, closed in 2000, raised $2.5 billion, and was then described as the "biggest so far in the private-equity industry".[18] The tenth and final fund raised while Pincus headed the company raised over $5.3 billion, closing in 2002.[3][19][20]

Early investments included 20th Century Fox, Humana, and Warner, a company later acquired by Waste Management, Inc.[18] In 1984, Warburg Pincus invested in Mattel, and Pincus joined its board of directors.[21] By 2002, when Pincus ended his tenure as the hands-on leader of the company, it had overseen investments of more than $13 billion in over 450 companies in 29 countries.[19][20]

In 1999, Warburg Pincus sold its asset management division to Credit Suisse for $650 million, which also acquired an interest in the private equity division of Warburg Pincus.[22]

The Map Division

Pincus supported several philanthropic activities, including a $10 million donation to Columbia University, New York in 1995. He was a trustee of the university at the time.[23] In 2005, the New York Public Library renovated its main map room, principally financed and endowed by Pincus and Princess Firyal of Jordan. The renovation cost $5 million and was also financially supported by the City of New York and the U.S. Government. The division was renamed The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division.[24] He was recognized in 2002 for having donated more than $5 million to the Library.[25]

Pincus married the former Suzanne Storrs, a former Miss Utah winner and actress, in 1967.[9][26][27] They had two sons, Henry A. Pincus (married to Ana Terzani) and Matthew S. Pincus (married to Sarah Min). She died in 1995 at the age of 60, after a long illness.[28][29]

Following cancer surgery in 2006, Pincus was declared mentally and physically incompetent, and his sons became his guardians. In 2008, his 14-room, 7,000-square-foot (650 m²) apartment at The Pierre hotel was offered for sale, over the objections of Princess Firyal, his long-time companion. The asking price at the time was $50 million.[30]

• Gupta, Udayan (2000). Done deals: venture capitalists tell their stories. Harvard Business Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-87584-938-6.