The People vs. Private Equity

It’s almost 10 p.m. on an October Tuesday at Brasserie 8½, a French restaurant on 57th Street in Manhattan, and the Texan in the back corner is just warming up. Steven LeBlanc, former real estate executive and senior managing director of a $110 billion pension fund, is holding forth at the lone occupied table. The restaurant takes its name from the iconic concave tower above it known as 9 West. The building has breathtaking views of Central Park and houses some of the world’s largest hedge funds and private equity firms.

A senior executive from private equity firm KKR, arguably 9 West’s most powerful tenant, has just left LeBlanc’s table, where he had been auditioning for more of LeBlanc’s business. Apollo Global Management, another huge buyout shop with offices upstairs, will have LeBlanc to breakfast the following day to make its case. LeBlanc is shopping for money managers; a few weeks later his office will announce an unprecedented $6 billion investment with the two firms on terms that reduce fees to the benefit of LeBlanc’s fund, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.