Wealthy families are winning deals away from private equity

The most sophisticated ones are turning into investment giants, leveraging their patient capital and regularly pitting their checkbooks against private equity firms

Michael Gottdenker glimpsed the future over a bowl of pasta earlier this year, and he liked what he saw.
 
The CEO of Hargray Communications, a telecom company servicing South Carolina and Georgia, was having lunch with billionaire Jim Davis, founder of family office Redwood Capital Investments, and his adviser David Watson. Over the previous week, the two had taken a liking to Gottdenker’s company. “I didn’t think that family offices would make direct investments,” Gottdenker says reflectively, “or if they did, I thought that it would be a lot of work to get their interest.” And yet, between bites