Leonard Green and Partners, a private equity firm, focuses its efforts on leveraged buyouts, specifically companies in the middle market. As of 2007, it had about $9 billion in its year end assets under management. It currently has more or less 25 workers based in its various Los Angeles, California branches.

Formed in 1989, Leonard Green was established by Leonard I. Green following his departure from Gibbons, Green and van Amerongen Limited, a merchant banking institution where Green was a founding partner together with Lewis W. van Amerongen and Edward I. Gibbons. In 2002, Green passed away, leaving the business in the hands of Green’s bankers who formerly worked at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette and Drexel Burnham Lambert before joining Leonard Green and Partners. These are Jonathan D. Sokoloff, Peter J. Nolan and John G. Danhakl.

At present, Leonard Green is investing on its fifth fund called the Green Equity Investors V LP, which the firm completed fundraising by March of 2007, having more than $5.3 billion of investor commitments. However, its most current fund is approximately thrice the size of the latter, the $1.85 billion worth Green Equity Investors V LP. Green formerly raised funds of about $1.24 billion for its third effort in 1998, with $311 million for the second fund by 1994 and raised $216 million for its first endeavor in 1990. By the end of 2007, the firm was listed as the 32nd of the 50 biggest private equities in the world.

At the end of 2007, Leonard Green and Partners completed investments in 45 businesses with a collective worth of $34 billion ever since its inception. Some of those companies are:

• Rite Aid (1999)
• Big 5 Sporting Goods (1992)
• Petco (2000)
• Varsity Brands Inc (2003)
• David’s Bridal (2006)
• The Container Store (2007)
• Whole Foods Market (2008)