Stephen Feinberg is an authority in hedge-funds and private-equity arena. That is, if anybody can find him; the co-founder and CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. does all he can to remain invisible despite all the attention his success draws.
Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is the company Stephen Feinberg founded in 1992 with William L. Richter. The 49-year old became a success story when he fathered one of the largest private equity investment firms in the United States with only $10 million.
You would think that little fact alone is enough for the press to be banging down his door in hopes of a picture. Stephen Feinberg does not see it that way. “If anyone at Cerebrus has his picture in the paper and a picture of his apartment, we will do more than fire that person. We will kill him. The jail sentence will be worth it,” Feinberg said at Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria in 2007. Though the Wall Street investors present responded with nervous laughter, the mysterious and guarded business powerhouse made his philosophy perfectly clear: reveal little as possible.
As the camera-shy head of Cerebrus continues to elude the press, the company continues to climb the ladder of success. On May 14, 2007 Cerebrus, along with 100 other investors, bought an 80% stake of Chrysler. Even as the firm made history, Feinberg was a no-show at the press conference saying, “we knew it would get an insane amount of press, and boy, we don’t like that.”
Nearly three decades after his years as a loner at New Jersey’s Princeton University, Feinberg has not abandoned his secretive style. His brilliance, success, and extremely private ways will always make him a target of the media. But until they catch him, Stephen Feinberg will continue to hide from plain sight.
