Theodore J. "Ted" "Teddy" Forstmann (?–) is one of the founding partners of Forstmann Little & Company, a private equity firm. He is unmarried, and has no children. Forstmann is a graduate of Yale and Columbia Law School.

Before founding Forstmann Little in 1978 with his brother, Nick, and Brian Little, Ted Forstmann was an attorney. Forstmann has been on the Forbes 400 List of Richest Americans since 1998, and as of the 2003 list, is worth at least $725 million.

He was featured prominently in the book Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, as he and his company attempted to acquire RJR Nabisco. In the subsequent movie version, he was portrayed by actor David Rasche. The movie showed Forstmann as being a vigilant critic of KKR's Henry Kravis and his methods, which is believed to have some basis in fact. Forstmann's criticism of Kravis (and much of the rest of the financial industry during the 1980s) centered around the ills of junk bond (high yield) investing and their use to raise large amounts of capital. When the junk bond market later fell into disfavor as a result of scandal, Forstmann was hailed as having incredible foresight, as his own methods involved using more conventional methods of attracting investment, while at the same time still maintaining nearly the same level of profitability as companies such as KKR and Revlon, which built their strategy around high-yield debt.

Forstmann has become an advocate for the Republican platform of school vouchers, and other methods of education reform.

While already very well known in the business community, Forstmann came to the attention of tabloid readers when he dated actress Elizabeth Hurley for a period of time.

External links

Forbes 400 entry