Quick Facts
Biography
Donald B. Marron (born July 21, 1934) is an American financier, private equity investor and entrepreneur, notable as the chairman and chief executive officer of brokerage firm Paine Webber from 1980 through the sale of the company in 2000, as well as the founder of private equity firm Lightyear Capital and of Data Resources Inc.. He is the father of the economist Donald B. Marron Jr.
Career
D.B. Marron & Company
In 1959, Marron founded D.B. Marron & Company. In 1965, Marron sold his company to Mitchell Hutchins and in 1967 was named president of the company. In 1977, Mitchell Hutchins was acquired by Paine Webber.
Data Resources Inc.
In 1969 Marron co-founded Data Resources Inc. with Harvard University notable economist Otto Eckstein. DRI became the largest non-governmental source of economic data and, working with Eckstein's theory of core inflation, developed the largest macroecomonic model of its era. The company was sold to McGraw-Hill in 1979 for over $100 million.
Paine Webber
In 1980, Marron was named Paine Webber’s Chief Executive Officer, and in 1981, he was named chairman of the board of Paine Webber, roles he would hold for the next two decades. In 2000, as CEO, Marron engineered the sale of Paine Webber to UBS AG.
Lightyear Capital
After two years at the bank, in 2002, Marron left UBS to found Lightyear Capital, a private equity firm focused on investments in financial services companies. The firm has raised approximately $2 billion since inception across its two funds. In May 2002, Lightyear closed on its first fund, The Lightyear Fund, with $750 million of investor commitments, approximately $500 million of which came from UBS AG. In 2006, the firm completed fundraising for its second private equity fund, with $850 million of commitments from over 40 investors.
Art collector and philanthropy
Under Marron's five-year term as president of the Museum of Modern Art's board of trustees in the late 1980s, the endowment increased significantly, from $26 million in 1985 to $59 million in 1990. The museum's annual fund, supported by donors every year, also increased from $2.5 million to $3.8 million, contributing to an operating budget of $46 million a year.
While at Paine Webber, Marron assembled a corporate collection of postwar art for the firm over 30 years. In 2002, UBS PaineWebber promised MoMA 37 works, including paintings, drawings and sculpture by Andy Warhol (including Cagney, 1962), Roy Lichtenstein, Lucian Freud, and Jasper Johns. The donation was to be made over 15 years to take advantage of tax benefits for UBS PaineWebber and to ensure that the corporation could still hang the art for a while.
Board memberships and other affiliations
- Paine Webber (as Chairman, 1981-2001)
- Fannie Mae - Member of the Board (2001–06)
- New York Stock Exchange - Member of the Board of (1974–81)
- Museum of Modern Art - President Emeritus, Trustee (former), Vice Chairman (former) of the Board of Directors
- President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities - Member
Education
- Bronx High School of Science (1950)
- Attended Baruch College