He might have retreated to one of his country houses to read the great books for a year, but instead, former Lazard deputy chief executive Steve Rattner has gone back into deal making.
By David Schutt
December 2000
Institutional Investor Magazine
Since leaving the firm last February, Rattner and several Lazard colleagues set up Quadrangle Group, a private equity fund that last month was close to wrapping up its second round of fundraising. The new money will bring Quadrangle’s capital to between $550 million and $600 million, still short of its $1 billion goal. The firm’s partners hope to hit that level by next summer. “I’m having a great time,” Rattner says.
Quadrangle has invested about $64 million in Access Spectrum, a closely held tech company that in September bought a batch of federal wireless spectrum licenses for two-way radio. It plans to lease slices of the spectrum to private users. Quadrangle also poured $20 million into Video Networks (soon to be called Pathfire), which helps prepare video for digital distribution over broadband pipes. Although Quadrangle’s first round of financing raised money from media moguls including USA Networks’ Barry Diller and Comcast’s Brian Roberts, the second round drew upon pension funds and other institutional investors.
