With a great feeling of loss and sadness, I want to join with so many others to mourn the passing of Ted Forstmann, the brilliant financier, entrepreneur and free-market capitalist. A Wall Street Journal editorial from Paul Gigot and a column by Charlie Gasparino in the New York Post chronicle Ted’s great achievements. It was Ted who invented the leveraged buyout, and it was Ted who walked away from the bubble of overleveraged junk bonds. Ted was a major philanthropist, and an education reformer, too.
But Ted also had a spiritual and religious side. He was a weekly Catholic churchgoer, perhaps unusual for a man of his financial stature. Down through the years, I would often run across Ted at the 7:30 p.m. Mass at St. Ignatius Loyola. I believe it was the last Mass on Sunday nights on the Upper East Side.
