Leonard M. Tannenbaum

Leonard M. Tannenbaum (born 1971) is the founder and chief executive officer of Fifth Street Asset Management. He also founded the pro-business political action committee "Keeping America Competitive".

Tannenbaum was born to a Jewish family, the son of Adele Fuchsberg and Calvin M. Tannenbaum. His father and was a managing partner of Brecher, Fishman, Feit, Heller, Rubin & Tannenbaum, a law firm in New York; his mother was a district administrator for the Nassau County Board of Cooperative Educational Services and exile from Cuba. He graduated with a BS in economics and an MBA in finance as part of a submatriculation program from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst holder. After school he worked as an equity analyst for Merrill Lynch.

In 1998, he founded Fifth Street Finance, a finance company specializing in raising funds from private investors and investing in small- and mid-sized companies. He raised $30 million ($15 million from his father-in-law, Bruce E. Toll) and established his first fund which made investments until 2004. In January 2005, he launched a second fund, Fifth Street Mezzanine Partners II which reached $157 million in value and included institutional investors such as DuPont, Sumitomo Bank and WP Global; the fund stopped investing in 2007. In 2007, he launched a third fund, which in 2008, after taking the advice of David Einhorn, he converted into a business development company (BDC). This entity, named Fifth Street Finance Corp., went public in May 2008. Fifth Street's customers are primarily private equity firms that invest in lower middle-market or middle-market companies (averaging $10 million in EBITDA). Investments average $35 million and never exceed $100 million. Effective September 2014, they received permission form the S.E.C. to increase the maximum investment across its platform to $250 million.

Tannenbaum is a supporter of the The Robin Hood Foundation, Kids in Crisis, United Way and the American Red Cross.

In 1997, Tannenbaum married Elizabeth Toll, daughter of housing developer Bruce E. Toll, in a Jewish ceremony at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia. They divorced in October 2010.

Today, Tannenbaum is married to Stacey Tannenbaum, who supports Len in his philanthropic efforts.

One of Len’s four children, Max, is the President of Dream Dragons, a company launched by 13 high school students through the Southwestern Connecticut chapter of Junior Achievement program, which empowers young entrepreneurs.

Tannenbaum was engaged in litigation with his former father-in-law, Bruce Toll, which was finalized on December 17, 2014. Bruce Toll, the appellant, sued his former son-in-law over a multimillion-dollar business deal gone bad. Toll alleged that he made an oral agreement with Tannenbaum to personally guarantee loans for one of Tannenbaum's ventures, provided that Toll's daughter (Tannenbaum's wife at the time) would share equally in the profits.

Toll asked the District Court to enforce this purported oral agreement or, in the alternative, for equitable relief. Applying New York law, the District Court granted summary judgment to Tannenbaum on all of Toll's claims. Toll appealed and the appellate court affirmed. In summary, New York law applied to Toll's breach of contract claim. Therefore, the appellate court ruled that the District Court correctly granted summary judgment to Tannenbaum because the alleged oral contract could not be performed, by Toll's own admission, within one year of its making.

Further, the court said Toll's claims under quasi-contract theory were meritless and that the District Court rightly granted summary judgment to Tannenbaum. The court said it considered all issues that were raised by Appellant and found no merit to any of them. Therefore, they affirmed the decision of the District Court.