Lewis, Reginald F.

Impact on the world

Led a $985 million leveraged buyout of Beatrice International Foods in 1987, the largest overseas leveraged buyout by an American company at the time, building it into TLC Beatrice International, the first Black-owned company to exceed $1 billion in annual sales; he was also the only student in Harvard Law School's history admitted before formally applying.

Life & background

Raised in East Baltimore, Lewis built his first business as a child selling newspaper subscriptions before earning a football scholarship to Virginia State University. Selected for a Harvard summer law program in 1965, he so impressed faculty that he became the only person in the school's history admitted to Harvard Law before formally applying, graduating in 1968. After co-founding Wall Street's first Black-owned law firm and practicing corporate law for 15 years, Lewis founded the private equity firm TLC Group in 1983, scoring a 90-to-1 return on his first deal, the McCall Pattern Company. In 1987 he led the leveraged buyout of Beatrice International Foods for $985 million, the largest overseas leveraged buyout by an American company at the time, building the renamed TLC Beatrice International into a 64-company, 31-country conglomerate and the first Black-owned business to top $1 billion in annual sales. He donated millions to causes including Howard University and a record $3 million gift to Harvard Law School before his death from brain cancer at 50.

Sources

1. THIRTEEN/WNET (Pioneers documentary); reginaldflewis.com