But by the end, we had raised over $1 billion. I think it was the largest fund of its kind at the time. We focused on turning around companies that h… - Sam Zell

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But by the end, we had raised over $1 billion. I think it was the largest fund of its kind at the time. We focused on turning around companies that had taken on excessive debt in the 1980s. We contributed our own capital in order to align our interests with those of our investors, and we didn’t charge fees on each acquisition like many leveraged-buyout firms did. Instead, we used the funds to share risk with our investors — and to share opportunities. We had a stated objective of holding our investments for ten to twelve years.