| Type | Private, LLC |
|---|---|
| Industry | Private Equity |
| Founded | 1984 |
| Founder(s) | Warren Hellman Tully Friedman |
| Headquarters | One Maritime Plaza San Francisco, California, United States |
| Products | Leveraged Buyout |
| Employees | 45+ (2008) |
| Website | www.hf.com |
Hellman & Friedman (H&F) is a private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman [1][2] and Tully Friedman[3], that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts and minority growth capital investments.
H&F has focused its efforts on several core target industries including media, financial services, professional services and information services. The firm tends to avoid asset intensive or other industrial businesses (e.g., manufacturing, chemicals, transportation).
H&F is based in San Francisco, with offices in New York and London. As of 2008, H&F employed in 2011 over 50 investment professionals, including 15 managing directors, 6 principals and 13 associates as well as senior advisors and general counsels.
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Early history |
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Hellman & Friedman was founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman. Before H&F, Hellman was a founding partner of Hellman, Ferri Investment Associates which would later be renamed Matrix Management Company. Today, Matrix is among the most prominent venture capital firms in the U.S. Before that, Hellman worked in investment banking at Lehman Brothers, where he served as president as well as head of the Investment Banking Division and Chairman of Lehman Corporation.
Tully Friedman was formerly a managing director at Salomon Brothers. In 1997, Friedman left the firm to found Friedman Fleischer & Lowe, a new private equity firm also based in San Francisco.
A core element in the H&F’s strategy is investing ‘growth’ opportunities whether it is an industry sector or a specific company and as a result H&F will invest in a variety of structures, frequently making minority investments with only limited controls. H&F views its willingness to accept minority positions as the competitive advantage while acknowledging the inherent risks associated with a minority position. Additionally, H&F has taken a number of unconventional steps to finance and close transactions, including arranging and syndicating the financing for several investments including Getty Images and Goodman Global.[4]
Since closing its sixth private equity fund in 2007, H&F has been active in making new investments:
H&F invests through a series of private equity funds (structured as limited partnerships) and its investors include a variety of pension funds, endowments and other institutional investors:
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