Nicholas C. Forstmann; Co-Founded Buyout Firm

Nicholas C. Forstmann, 54, an investment banker and philanthropist who co-founded the leveraged buyout firm Forstmann Little & Co. Forstmann, who founded the company with his brother Theodore and William Brian Little in the late 1970s, played a crucial role in structuring the financing of many high-stakes takeovers. In the 1980s Forstmann Little took over Dr. Pepper Co. and Topps Co., the trading card firm. In the 1990s the firm bought Gulfstream and General Instrument. Since its founding, the firm has earned more than $5 billion in profit for investors and has had an annual rate of return of 55%. On Friday in New York of lung cancer.