Personal Information
The son of an insurance executive, he was born in Paterson, New Jersey, on November 27, 1927. He graduated from Newark Academy and, after service in the U.S. Army (infantry), received his B.A. in 1952 from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. At Lafayette he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Rho chapter).
He began his career with Union Securities in 1952. He served as Vice President of Weeden & Co. before becoming the senior partner in charge of the Government and Municipal Bond departments at Salomon Brothers, where he was a member of the seven-man Executive Committee of the firm.
Following government service, Simon was a Vice Chairman at Blyth Eastman Dillon for three years, then co-founded with Ray Chambers, a tax accountant, Wesray Capital Corporation (Mr. Simon contributing the "WES" and Mr. Chambers contributing the "RAY"), a leveraged buyout (LBO) firm. In 1982, Wesray invested approximately $1 million in equity capital (with Mr. Simon contributing $330,000) and borrowed another $79 million to take private a Cincinnati-based greeting card company, Gibson Greetings, for $80 million. Eighteen months later, the company was taken public again, with a value of $290 million, and Mr. Simon's $330,000 investment was worth $66 million.
In 1984, he launched WSGP International, which concentrated on investments in real estate and financial service organizations in the western United States and on the Pacific Rim. In 1988, together with sons William E. Simon Jr. and J. Peter Simon, he founded William E. Simon & Sons, a global merchant bank with offices in New Jersey, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. The firm is now extensively involved in providing venture capital. In 1990, he partnered with several investors to form Catterton-Simon Partners, a private equity firm focused on beverages and other consumer products, which today is known as Catterton Partners.
During his business career, Simon served on the boards of over thirty companies including Xerox, Citibank, Halliburton, Dart & Kraft, and United Technologies. In recognition of his leadership in business, finance and public service, the Graduate School of Management at the University of Rochester was renamed the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration in 1986.
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