“I thought it was normal,” he says.īy the time Musallam was in high school, his family returned to the U.S. His family was once held at gunpoint in Tanzania and shaken down by bandits on a dirt road. Musallam says the experience was an immersion course in navigating relationships with people from different cultural backgrounds, one that taught him sensitivity and resilience. We would do an assignment and my mom would mail it in.” “We were homeschooled and learned through correspondence. “We were literally in the middle of nowhere-there was nothing there, no village, nothing,” recalls Musallam of his years in Africa. Ramzi’s formative years were spent in emerging markets such as Saudi Arabia and Tanzania.
Army Corps of Engineers, moving his family constantly. By the mid-1960s, the now successful Samih returned to the Middle East his second son, Ramzi, was born in 1968 in Amman, Jordan. He persevered, eventually earning a civil engineering degree from the University of Missouri before settling-and prospering-in Effingham, Illinois. His first night at the YMCA, all his belongings were stolen. “He has quietly built an extremely valuable business being at the intersection of government-regulated markets and technology, which is rare for private equity.”Ī Palestinian Christian born in Jerusalem, Ramzi’s father, Samih Musallam, landed in New York City in late 1950, shortly after the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. He is understated but extremely effective,” says David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs. “There are people in the private equity world who have a lot of visibility. He is one of a handful of financiers with top government security clearance.
The Best Data Comes From Oliver Gottschalg, A Professor At Hec Paris Business School, Who Analyzed 529 Firms Over A Ten-year Period.ĭespite his ease navigating Washington and Wall Street, Musallam shuns publicity. In January, Veritas was listed as the private equity industry’s fourth-best-performing firm by the closely followed HEC–Dow Jones ranking (see below), ahead of high-flying firms like Thoma Bravo, Vista Equity Partners and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.īEST IN BUYOUTS Private Equity Is A Notoriously Secretive Business-which Makes It Hard For Outsiders To Assess Which Firms Are Outperforming. “These are government-influenced markets, no doubt about it, and being close to how the government thinks about those markets enables us to understand how we can best invest.” “I and the firm maintain a very close proximity to government because government is at the forefront of all the complexities and issues that confront us,” says Musallam, sitting in his Manhattan office, whose broad views of Central Park mark it as distinctly distant from Washington, D.C. While many buyout firms try to avoid investing in areas affected by government interference, Musallam’s strategy hinges on understanding what the most influential player in the global economy will do next. America’s $6.8 trillion worth of annual spending and sweeping regulatory power give it unparalleled sway in these markets. Musallam produced this track record by focusing on technology companies that operate in sectors dominated by the United States’ federal government, particularly defense, health care and education. At 53, Musallam finds himself worth an estimated $4 billion, good enough for a debut appearance on this year’s Forbes 400. The funds have lost money on only a single investment ($87 million on a solar panel company in New Mexico), and since Musallam took over, Veritas has distributed $12 billion to its investors. Nearly a decade later, Veritas Capital’s assets have grown from $2 billion in 2012 to $36 billion today, and its funds have generated staggering net internal rates of return of 31%. Years later, the hasty deal would produce bad blood-and a lawsuit-between Musallam and McKeon’s family.īut these maneuvers laid the foundation for a stunning Wall Street success. He also cut a deal with McKeon’s family that would transfer ownership of McKeon’s majority stake in Veritas, mostly to Musallam. Instead, Musallam persuaded them to bet on him. McKeon’s death meant they suddenly had the right to tear up their commitments to fund Veritas’ deals. The morning after the suicide, Musallam began holding emergency meetings with the company’s investors. Musallam had come onboard in 1997 and was Veritas’ second-highest-ranking executive.
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