thoma bravo type private ownership limited liability company industry private equity founded 1998 founder carl thoma bryan cressey headquarters chicago illinois united states san francisco california united states products investments private equity funds total assets 1.5 billion number of employees 20 website www.tcb.com thoma cressey equity partners logo in use prior to 2007 when the firm changed its name thoma bravo formerly thoma cressey bravo and thoma cressey equity partners is an american private equity and growth capital firm based in chicago and san francisco . as of 2008 update the firm has raised more than 1.5 billion in investor commitments . the firm principally invests in high growth industries including health care and software . thoma bravo invests through a series of private limited partnerships and its investors include a variety of pension funds endowments and other institutional investors . following its separation from gtcr discussed below thoma cressey raised three private equity funds 1998 fund vi 450 million 2001 fund vii 555 million 2006 fund viii 765 million history edit thoma cressey equity partners which was renamed thoma cressey bravo to reflect the growing role of partner orlando bravo was founded in 1998 following the separation of golder thoma cressey rauner gtcr a large chicago based private equity firm . the firm s earliest predecessor golder thoma & co. was founded in 1980 by stanley golder and carl thoma . in the 1970s golder built the private equity program at first chicago corp. 1 where he is noted primarily for backing federal express and for efforts as chairman of the national venture capital association and the national association of small business investment companies to change federal laws allowing pensions to invest in private equity . 2 3 golder thoma received much of its initial funding from william m. blair and upon leaving first chicago golder was replaced by john canning jr. who would go on to found rival chicago private equity firm madison dearborn . in 1984 after recruiting bryan cressey to join the firm from first chicago the firm s name was changed to golder thoma cressey and with the promotion of bruce rauner to partner the firm would come to be known as golder thoma cressey rauner inc. gtcr although it would still often be referred to as golder thoma . 4 in 1998 disagreements between the senior partners led golder thoma cressey rauner inc. split into two private equity firms . both firms continue to invest primarily through consolidations of specific industries referred to as roll ups thoma cressey equity partners carl thoma and bryan cressey based in chicago and san francisco . thoma cressey would be renamed thoma chressey bravo to reflect the growing role of partner orlando bravo . gtcr golder rauner stanley golder and bruce rauner the 8 billion private equity firm based in chicago commonly referred to as gtcr . gtcr founder stanley golder died in 2000 and today the firm is led by bruce rauner along with several partners david donnini ned jannotta et al. . in 2008 bryan cressey left thoma cressey bravo with several investment professionals to form cressey & co. a small healthcare focused private equity firm . 5 6 thoma cressey bravo became thoma bravo after cressey s departure led by managing partners carl thoma orlando bravo lee mitchell and scott crabill . the firm closed its 9th fund in march 2009 with 822.5 million . 7 external links edit thoma cressey bravo official website thoma bravo official website references edit today part of jpmorgan chase through its acquisition of bankone in 1978 the us labor department relaxed certain of the erisa restrictions under the prudent man rule a fiduciary responsibility of investment managers under erisa . under the original application each investment was expected to adhere to risk standards on its own merits limiting the ability of investment managers to make any investments deemed potentially risky . under the revised 1978 interpretation the concept of portfolio diversification of risk measuring risk at the aggregate portfolio level rather than the investment level to satisfy fiduciary standards would also be accepted . private equity pioneer golder dies . buyouts january 24 2000 . a cached version of the article can be found here . stanley c. golder a donor profile at the uiuc website dealmakers boot camp ; golder thoma a buyout industry proving ground crain s chicago business september 2004 by steve daniels personality profile cressey takes specialization to the next level . buyouts june 23 2008 thoma bravo completes fundraising bloomberg march 16 2009 v t e private equity and venture capital investment firms investment strategy venture growth mezzanine secondaries leveraged buyout history history of private equity and venture capital early history of private equity private equity in the 1980s private equity in the 1990s private equity in the 2000s investors angel investor corporate venture capital commercial bank crowdfunding institutional investor insurance company investment bank endowment family office fund of funds high net worth individual merchant bank pension fund sovereign wealth fund private equity firms venture capital firms portfolio companies retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title thoma cressey bravo & oldid 736065405 categories private equity firms of the united stateshidden categories articles containing potentially dated statements from 2008all articles containing potentially dated statements navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 24 august 2016 at 23 00 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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