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— Movers and Shakers —
With her elevation in late July to the chairmanship of DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, Nicole Arnaboldi joined a club of one. By her own tally (and ours), she holds the distinction of being the first and only woman to lead a $1 billion-plus private equity operation. "I can't think of another woman running a buyout fund," she says. One New York venture capital firm, Solera Capital, is led by Molly Ashby but is considerably smaller than DLJMB. Indeed, Arnaboldi, who just turned 50, presides over a storied leveraged buyout franchise. Launched in 1985 as the in-house LBO unit of Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette and led initially by former DLJ banker and current Blackstone Group LP president Hamilton "Tony" James, DLJMB built an enviable investment record. Eight years ago, it became one of only a handful of elite firms to attract more than $5 billion for a single investment fund. In 2000 DLJ and DLJMB were absorbed into Credit Suisse Group, and in 2004 and 2005 its top partners, Lawrence Schloss and Thompson Dean, quit to start their own shops -- taking several dealmakers with them. Despite the brain drain and DLJMB's decision to abandon megadeals in favor of bite-sized fare, the shop, which raised a $2.1 billion fund in October 2006, is a formidable player in middle-market buyouts.
Arnaboldi has witnessed it all from inside. She joined DLJ in 1985 fresh out of Harvard, where she earned J.D. and M.B.A. degrees and was a Baker Scholar. The next year she began working full time for Sprout Group, DLJ's venture capital business, where she came under the wing of Sprout's now-retired head, Richard Kroon, and of Janet Hickey, a prominent venture investor who today co-heads Sprout. In 1992, Arnaboldi joined DLJMB, where she has involved herself in managing the business and helped launch DLJ's mezzanine financing funds along with its fund-of-funds and secondary fund businesses. As group head, she's replacing Steven Rattner, 48. According to Credit Suisse, Rattner retired to spend more time with his family, although The New York Times traced his resignation to a sexual misadventure. In her new post, Arnaboldi says she will be more deeply involved in the investment side of the business. Although turmoil in the debt markets has put a halt on big-cap buyouts for now, Arnaboldi says investment opportunities abound in the middle market. "That's our sweet spot," she says. "We've all along felt there is greater opportunity to create value in the middle market. Obviously, in this [credit] market, middle-market deals are a heck of a lot easier to finance." As to why more women haven't reached the summit in private equity, Arnaboldi avoids facile explanations like sexism. Instead, she points out that many women on Wall Street drop out of the business before their careers peak. "I don't think opportunities are lacking" for women in private equity, she says. "I think it's an evolutionary process. It's a business you have to spend a lot of time in to develop a career along the way. For a variety of reasons, you just don't see a lot of women going down that path." |
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