Legendary Latinx Investors

Apr 14, 2022
Legendary Latinx Investors

Essentially the most profitable buyers are these with imaginative and prescient. They’re able to seeing alternatives the place others can’t, typically leaning on intuition as a lot as chilly, exhausting knowledge. 

The Latinx buyers on this checklist could not all be family names, however their monetary backing has helped launch or rejuvenate hundreds of companies. With many extra hits than misses to their identify, they’ve additionally amassed substantial private wealth within the course of. 

Key Takeaways

  • The wealthiest Latinx investor in the US is Orlando Bravo, a Puerto Rico native who co-founded the non-public fairness agency Thoma Bravo.
  • One other investor with Puerto Rican heritage, Jose E. Feliciano, has collected greater than $3 billion in private wealth by way of his financing agency Clearlake Capital Group. 
  • Mexican-American Pablo Legorreta based Royalty Pharma, which supplies funding to pharmaceutical builders in trade for future royalty revenue. 

Orlando Bravo

In 2008, the younger dealmaker Orlando Bravo paired up with buyout guru Carl Thoma to launch the software-focused non-public fairness agency Thoma Bravo. Since then, there’s been no trying again, with the agency proving itself a drive within the buyout sector and Bravo turning into the primary Puerto Rico-born billionaire. At present, Forbes pegs his web wealth at upwards of $6.3 billion.

Bravo has led greater than 375 software program firm buyouts since beginning the agency, with a complete transaction worth in extra of $190 billion. His offers have been so profitable that Forbes topped him “Wall Avenue’s greatest dealmaker” in 2019.

The celebrated investor hasn’t forgotten his roots. When Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico in 2017, Bravo led a reduction effort for the island. And he made a $100 million dedication to nurturing Puerto Rican startups by way of his basis’s Rising Entrepreneurs Program.

Pablo Legorreta 

Legoretta based Royalty Pharma, the world’s largest investor in pharmaceutical royalties, in 1996. The agency supplies the funding that prescription drugmakers comparable to AbbVie, Pfizer, and Merck want with a purpose to full late-stage scientific trials and introduce merchandise to market in trade for future revenue streams. It additionally purchases the prevailing royalty rights from present prescription drugs.

Right now, Legoretta—who earned a level in industrial engineering in Mexico Metropolis earlier than embarking on an funding profession—is value over $4 billion, in line with Forbes. He’s devoted a part of that fortune to elevating the standard of healthcare in Latin America, launching a nonprofit that’s supplied greater than 450 scholarships to medical doctors and different medical suppliers to allow them to examine overseas.

José E. Feliciano

Via his funding agency Clearlake Capital Group, José E. Feliciano has mixed a uncommon capacity to establish goal corporations and supply the experience they should maximize their progress potential. Feliciano and his crew deal with small- and mid-market corporations, searching for buyout alternatives which may fly below the radar for many funding corporations. To this point, his agency has amassed a stout portfolio of $43 billion in property below administration, consisting of companies within the expertise, industrials, and shopper segments.

Previous to establishing Clearlake with Behdad Eghbali in 2006, the Puerto Rico-born Feliciano held funding banking roles at Goldman Sachs and served because the chief monetary officer of a short-lived tech startup. Right now, Feliciano—to not be confused with the musician of the identical identify—has a private fortune of greater than $3 billion.

Jorge Pérez

Miami has seen a dramatic change since Jorge Pérez began his improvement firm, The Associated Group, in 1979. Right now, the town shows a skyline that didn’t exist 4 a long time in the past—and maybe nobody has performed a much bigger position in that transformation than Pérez.

Born in Argentina, the visionary actual property mogul moved to the US in 1968, in the end making his residence in Miami. When he launched The Associated Group, his preliminary focus was on multi-unit housing for working-class households, though lately he’s extra recognized for his upscale developments catering to the well-heeled. Lately, “the apartment king of South Florida” has additionally expanded geographically, constructing or planning initiatives in metros like Atlanta, Denver, and Las Vegas. 

Manny Fernandez

Manny Fernandez is greatest recognized for his appearances on CNBC’s “Make Me a Millionaire Inventor,” the place he showcases his knack for recognizing and nurturing new enterprise concepts. Behind the digicam, Fernandez boasts a powerful résumé with a litany of roles—angel investor, entrepreneur, and author amongst them.

In 2013, he created SF Angels Group, a consortium of angel buyers devoted to discovering promising tech startups within the Bay space. Shortly thereafter, Fernandez, whose dad and mom are from Puerto Rico, launched DreamFunded, an “fairness crowdfunding platform offering unique insider entry to among the most sought-after seed- and later-stage non-public corporations in America.”

Fernandez is at present one of the vital sought-after consultants in non-public investing, commonly talking at tech corporations and main universities around the globe.

Javier Saade

Saade based Affect Grasp Holdings, a agency that invests in and helps develop companies within the expertise and financial improvement areas. The Puerto Rico native can be a enterprise associate at Fenway Summer season, a enterprise capital agency specializing in early-stage investments.

Saade lent his appreciable experience to the general public sector, assuming the position of chief of funding and innovation for the U.S. Small Enterprise Administration throughout the Obama administration. In that capability, he helped handle applications that invested $128 billion in additional than 330,000 companies. It seems that he’ll return to authorities as soon as once more, having just lately been nominated by President Biden to chair the Federal Retirement Thrift Funding Board.

The Backside Line

Individuals of Latin heritage have made an indelible mark on the investing world, founding extremely profitable financing ventures which have supplied capital for numerous companies.