David Bonderman 1942 - 2024

This statement is issued on behalf of the Bonderman family, TPG, Wildcat Capital Management and the Seattle Kraken.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of David Bonderman, the co-founder of global alternative asset management firm, TPG, and owner of the NHL’s 32^nd franchise, the Seattle Kraken. David died Wednesday at the age of 82, surrounded by his family.

“Bondo,” as he was known to friends and colleagues, leaves behind a legacy marked by brilliance at every stage of his illustrious career combined with a relentless quest for knowledge and a passion for music, sports, adventure, and conservation. David was a true friend to many and, above all else, a devoted father of five and grandfather of three.

David was born in Los Angeles on November 27, 1942. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Washington in 1963 with a major in Russian studies. While at UW, he developed both a love for the city and a curiosity about the world. He went on to Harvard Law School where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1966. While at Harvard, he was awarded a Sheldon Fellowship, which sponsored him to travel outside the United States for a year of research and discovery. He used this time to travel to Egypt and the Middle East where he studied Islamic law and became fluent in Arabic. This experience led him to create and endow the Bonderman Fellowships at his alma mater, the University of Washington, a program that has sponsored travel around the world for well over 300 students.

Following Harvard Law School, David served briefly as an assistant professor at Tulane University School of Law before moving to Washington, D.C., to be Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division from 1968 to 1969 during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. While there, David successfully litigated many cases involving racial discrimination in the South before subsequently joining the prestigious law firm of Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in antitrust, securities law, corporate law, bankruptcy, and historic preservation. Near the end of his tenure at Arnold & Porter, David successfully represented Raymond Dirks before the U.S. Supreme Court in one of the most important insider trading cases in history, Dirks v. Securities and Exchange Commission.

It was also at Arnold & Porter that David met Robert Bass. Mr. Bass hired David to be his attorney in a dispute with the Texas Department of Transportation. After David helped resolve the case successfully, Mr. Bass asked David to move to Fort Worth to help manage his family's investment business. David reportedly told Mr. Bass, “Bob, I don’t know anything about investing,” to which Mr. Bass told him, “Neither do I, but we can figure it out together.” Never afraid to take a risk, David moved to Forth Worth to become the Chief Operating Officer of the Bass Group.

At the Bass Group, David quickly earned a reputation for taking on groundbreaking deals and often difficult turnarounds.

It was also at Bass that David met Jim Coulter, his business and investing partner for more than 38 years. In 1992 they left Bass and made a bold bid to acquire Continental Airlines out of bankruptcy.

In 1993, after making that successful bid, David, Jim and Bill Price founded TPG. The $66 million investment in Continental ended up turning a 10x profit and became indicative of TPG’s differentiated approach to investing.

TPG has always reflected David’s unique and eclectic style – unafraid of risk, willing to take on financial restructuring and operational complexity, and always looking to back strong executives. And maybe, above all else, with a distinctive culture of openness and collaboration. David, in speaking about TPG’s formation and culture once said: “We came out of a family business. We didn’t have any senior people who’d spent any time in the investment banking world and that gave us a different outlook on things and different cultural positioning. You have a different view of risk. You have a different view of what life is about and it allowed us to do things that other people didn’t do.” Together, David, Jim and their partners transformed TPG from a three-person investing office to a publicly traded global alternative asset manager with nearly $240 billion of assets under management and 28 offices around the world.

Through his years at TPG, David’s innovative thinking landed him at the center of several large industry transformations – from restructuring the airline and banking industries, to getting in front of massive investing waves in technology and healthcare. David built an astonishingly broad and diverse resume of investments and was the architect of some of the most well-known, complex, and innovative transactions in the history of private equity. Throughout David’s career, there were few industries he didn’t touch and explore. He was a valued leader broadly in the business world, serving on more than 80 diverse corporate boards: from Continental to Ryanair, from General Motors (at the request of the U.S. Government) to Ducati, from Kite Pharmaceutical to Oxford Health, from MGM to Univision, and from Korea First Bank to Fairmont Raffles. David was valued for his incisive judgement, keen wit, and inability to suffer obfuscation.

Despite David’s success, he never changed. He remained curious, meeting constantly with young entrepreneurs to learn about their ideas. And he possessed an extraordinary set of interests and pursuits that took him all over the world and created friendships across the business, sports, music, philanthropic, environmental, conservation, and academic communities.

Rarely the loudest person in the room, but often the smartest, David remained humble, once saying that his personal strength was “Not knowing a lot about something but knowing enough to make a decent decision.”

Although David was primarily known for his business acumen, he was quietly a passionate advocate for a range of causes, particularly those related to environmental conservation, education, and healthcare.

He was a member of the boards of The Wilderness Society, World Wildlife Fund, American Himalayan Foundation, and the Grand Canyon Trust. His commitment to these causes was not only financial but also personal, and he frequently took the time to personally engage with the organizations he supported. David was also passionate about music and sports. He was a member of the Board of Directors and a strong financial supporter of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 2018, David returned to Seattle, where he had worked as a security guard at the Space Needle while in college, and led the effort to bring the Seattle Kraken, the NHL’s 32^nd franchise, to the city. David also co-led the effort to construct the Climate Pledge Arena, a state-of-the-art facility and the world’s most sustainable arena, under the historical roof of the old Key Arena. As the Kraken team worked through the selection of a name and design of their logo, it was David himself who notoriously stood up in a meeting and pointed to the location where a red ‘eye’ should be inserted in the Kraken “S,” now the signature element of the logo. The Kraken played their inaugural season in 2021 and are now in their fourth season.

David was recognized throughout the world for his many accomplishments, including a Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement, the Woodrow Wilson Award of Corporate Citizenship, and his induction into the Texas Business Hall of Fame in 2017.

Yet for all of David’s many accomplishments, above all else, he valued his family and the time he spent with them. He was a devoted father and grandfather to his five children and three grandchildren. He prioritized family trips, middle and high school sporting events, family card games, and weekly donut runs. A statement from his children simply said: “We are all grateful for having experienced his wisdom, wit, generosity, and love. His zest for life, and his passions, especially sports and music, were infectious. He was always there for his friends and family, and we will miss him greatly.”