Eric Gleacher

Eric Gleacher (born April 27, 1940) is an American investor and financier, and the founder and chairman of Gleacher & Co. (previously NASDAQ: GLCH), an independent investment banking firm based in New York City.

Gleacher gained prominence as an investment banker in the 1980s. In 1978, he founded the mergers and acquisitions department of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb. He left Lehman, following its acquisition by Shearson, to head the mergers and acquisitions group at Morgan Stanley from 1985 through 1990. During this time, Gleacher was involved in the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. as well as the leveraged buyout of Revlon by Ronald Perelman.

In 1990, Gleacher founded his own firm Gleacher Partners, which he sold to National Westminster Bank in 1996. He bought back his firm in 1999 for $135 million. In 2009, Gleacher merged his firm with the publicly traded Broadpoint Securities Group. The combined firm was renamed Gleacher & Co. Less than five years later, including a period of time while under his stewardship as CEO, Gleacher & Co. announced on March 13, 2014, that it would liquidate its remaining assets, having disbanded its investment banking business during 2013.

Gleacher attended Western Illinois University, where he competed in golf. He later transferred to Northwestern University and graduated with a B.A. in history in 1963, after which he served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years. Thereafter, Gleacher received his MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1967.

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business's downtown Chicago Gleacher Center is named in his honor.

Gleacher currently sits on the board of trustees for the Hospital for Special Surgery and Northwestern University.