How One Executive Built a Private Equity Firm Managing $70 Billion

Private equity in 1993 looked nothing like today’s industry. Mega-funds barely existed. Middle-market investing remained fragmented. Technology played minimal role in sourcing or managing deals. Into this landscape stepped Sami Mnaymneh and Tony Tamer, who launched HIG Capital from Miami rather than Manhattan.

Three decades later, Mnaymneh serves as founder, executive chairman and CEO of a firm managing $70 billion across seven investment strategies. HIG Capital now employs over 1,000 people in 19 offices worldwide and has invested in more than 400 companies since inception. The firm’s current portfolio exceeds 100 businesses with combined revenues above $53 billion.

The trajectory from startup to industry heavyweight offers lessons about scaling investment firms, managing through market cycles and building multi-strategy platforms that can compete with far larger competitors.

Credentials and Early Training

Before entering private equity, Mnaymneh assembled credentials that would prove foundational. He graduated first in his class at Columbia University, earning a B.A. summa cum laude. He then pursued simultaneous graduate degrees at Harvard University, receiving a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, both with honors.

This academic achievement opened doors to top-tier financial institutions. Mnaymneh began his career at Morgan Stanley in New York before moving to The Blackstone Group as a managing director. Working at Blackstone in the early 1990s meant participating in one of private equity’s pioneering platforms.

The experience at Blackstone exposed Mnaymneh to large-scale buyouts, complex capital structures and portfolio company value creation. However, he and Tamer identified an opportunity in smaller transactions that mega-funds largely ignored. Companies with enterprise values between $50 million and $500 million needed sophisticated capital partners but couldn’t attract attention from firms focused on billion-dollar deals.

The Middle-Market Thesis

Launching HIG Capital in 1993 required convincing limited partners that middle-market investing deserved dedicated resources. Larger deals offered greater efficiency in deploying capital. Why should investors commit funds to a strategy requiring dozens of smaller transactions rather than a handful of large ones?

Mnaymneh’s answer centered on market inefficiency. Middle-market companies had fewer financing options, less competition from buyers and greater potential for operational improvements. These factors could translate to superior risk-adjusted returns if executed properly.

The strategy also required building capabilities beyond dealmaking. Middle-market companies lacked the sophisticated management teams and robust systems that larger corporations possessed. Creating value meant rolling up sleeves and working on operational issues rather than simply engineering financial outcomes.

HIG Capital hired investment professionals with operating backgrounds rather than pure finance pedigrees. This decision reflected Mnaymneh’s belief that middle-market investing required understanding business operations, not just financial modeling.

Multi-Strategy Expansion

While HIG Capital began as a traditional buyout fund, Mnaymneh expanded into adjacent strategies over time. The firm now operates funds dedicated to growth equity, debt, real estate, infrastructure, special situations credit and healthcare growth.

This diversification serves multiple purposes. Different strategies allow HIG Capital to provide various forms of capital to companies at different stages. A business might receive growth equity initially, later refinance with HIG Capital debt, then pursue a management buyout backed by HIG Capital’s private equity funds.

The multi-strategy approach also smooths cash flows to limited partners. Different strategies generate fees and returns at different times, creating more consistent distributions than relying solely on buyout fund exits.

WhiteHorse, HIG Capital’s direct lending platform, exemplifies successful strategy expansion. The platform has invested approximately $18 billion in 285 companies since inception. In August 2025, WhiteHorse closed its fourth fund at $5.9 billion, one of the largest middle-market lending funds raised that year.

Fund IV targets senior secured loans to both sponsor-backed and non-sponsor companies with EBITDA between $30 million and $100 million. The lending platform competes directly with banks and business development companies while offering more flexible terms and faster execution.

Decision-Making Authority

Mnaymneh maintains personal approval authority over every capital commitment HIG Capital makes. This centralized control is unusual for a firm managing $70 billion. Most private equity platforms delegate investment decisions to fund managers or investment committees once firms reach substantial scale.

The approval requirement means Mnaymneh reviews dozens of transactions annually across multiple strategies and geographies. Each requires understanding industry dynamics, assessing management quality, evaluating competitive positioning and determining appropriate capital structures.

This hands-on involvement creates both benefits and constraints. Centralized decision-making ensures consistency in investment criteria and risk management. It prevents individual teams from pursuing transactions that don’t align with firm-wide standards.

However, the approval requirement also creates bottlenecks. Investment professionals must schedule time with Mnaymneh to present opportunities. Deals requiring quick decisions may encounter delays if Mnaymneh is unavailable. Competitors with more distributed authority can sometimes move faster.

Mnaymneh apparently believes the benefits outweigh the costs. Three decades of managing investments suggests the centralized approach has worked, even as the firm has grown substantially.

Recent Strategic Moves

HIG Capital continues expanding capabilities under Mnaymneh’s leadership. The firm recently announced plans to raise $1.5 billion for a vehicle focused on GP-led continuation funds, entering the growing secondaries market.

This strategy involves investing in continuation vehicles that other private equity firms create to extend ownership of high-performing assets. As traditional exit markets have slowed, continuation funds have become popular liquidity mechanisms. Jefferies data shows continuation funds represented 19% of private equity exits in the first half of 2025, up from 13% for all of 2024.

To build this capability, HIG Capital recruited four executives from Morgan Stanley’s private equity secondaries team. Managing Director Dan Wieder leads the group, bringing decades of secondaries experience. The team will focus on middle-market continuation vehicles, investing at least $50 million in approximately 20 transactions.

The move into secondaries represents opportunistic expansion into a growing market. However, it also reflects adaptation to market conditions. With traditional exits slowing, providing liquidity to other managers creates deal flow independent of IPO or M&A markets.

Geographic Expansion

HIG Capital has built substantial international operations over three decades. The firm now operates affiliate offices across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Recent European activity has proven particularly robust.

European offices completed transactions in 2025 including Finnish waste management company Fluo Group, Spanish occupational health provider Avanta Salud, German machine tool manufacturer HELLER Group, French textile services business France Workwear and Italian aerospace logistics company A.L.A.

This geographic diversification provides access to deal flow beyond crowded U.S. markets. European middle-market private equity remains somewhat less competitive than U.S. markets, potentially offering better entry valuations.

However, international expansion requires local expertise. European deals involve different legal systems, tax structures, labor regulations and banking relationships than U.S. transactions. HIG Capital has built teams in each market rather than trying to manage European investments from Miami.

Performance and Returns

Private equity firms closely guard performance data, making external assessment difficult. HIG Capital has successfully raised successively larger funds over three decades, suggesting satisfactory returns to limited partners.

The ability to attract nearly $6 billion for a single lending fund indicates strong institutional demand. Limited partners allocate capital based on track records, not promises. WhiteHorse’s fundraising success suggests the platform has delivered on return expectations.

Mnaymneh’s personal wealth, while not publicly disclosed, reflects decades of earning management fees and carried interest on profitable investments. His position among Florida’s wealthiest business leaders indicates substantial accumulated wealth from managing HIG Capital.

Private equity compensation typically includes base salary, annual bonuses and carried interest. Carried interest represents the general partner’s share of investment profits, usually 20% after returning capital and preferred returns to limited partners. For successful funds, carried interest dwarfs other compensation.

Management and Succession

Mnaymneh shares leadership with co-founder Tony Tamer, who serves as executive chairman. Both remain actively involved more than 30 years after launching the firm. This longevity raises inevitable questions about succession planning.

HIG Capital has developed deep leadership ranks. Managing directors run regional offices and strategy-specific funds with substantial autonomy, though Mnaymneh retains ultimate approval authority. This structure provides continuity while maintaining founder oversight.

The firm has not publicly addressed succession timing or specific plans. However, the development of senior leadership capable of running large-scale operations suggests preparation for eventual transition. Whether that occurs through gradual delegation or more abrupt change remains unclear.

Challenges Ahead

The private equity industry faces headwinds entering 2026. Elevated interest rates have increased borrowing costs while reducing leverage multiples. Exit markets remain constrained as both strategic buyers and public markets show caution. Recent portfolio company sales demonstrate transaction activity continues, but at lower volumes than the 2010s.

These conditions create pressure on returns. Private equity historically relied on multiple expansion and leverage to generate returns. With purchase price multiples near historical highs and debt more expensive, operational improvements must carry greater weight in value creation.

The middle market where HIG Capital operates may prove somewhat insulated from these pressures. Smaller companies have limited access to public capital markets regardless of economic conditions, creating consistent demand for private capital. Competition for deals remains intense, but perhaps less so than in large-cap transactions.

Mnaymneh and his team have navigated multiple market cycles. The firm managed through the dot-com bust, the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic while continuing to raise capital and complete transactions. This experience provides institutional memory that newer firms lack.

The Road Forward

As HIG Capital approaches its 35th anniversary, Mnaymneh continues expanding capabilities and pursuing new opportunities. The secondaries initiative, ongoing European expansion and continued fundraising across strategies indicate growth ambitions remain intact.

Whether a $70 billion platform can continue growing depends partly on market conditions and partly on execution. Larger firms face challenges deploying capital efficiently while maintaining return standards. Some private equity firms have struggled after growing too large to execute their original strategies effectively.

HIG Capital’s multi-strategy approach provides flexibility but also complexity. Managing seven distinct investment strategies across 19 offices requires sophisticated systems and coordination. The personal approval requirement Mnaymneh maintains may become increasingly difficult to sustain as transaction volumes grow.

Still, three decades of growth suggests Mnaymneh has built a durable platform. The firm survived and thrived through multiple market cycles, closed substantial funds across strategies, and maintained institutional investor confidence through changing conditions.

For now, the executive who started analyzing deals at Morgan Stanley, learned private equity at Blackstone and launched his own firm from Miami continues leading one of the industry’s largest middle-market platforms. How long he maintains that role, and what comes next, remains a question for the future.