Avista Capital Partners

Avista Capital Partners is an American private equity firm focused on growth capital and leveraged buyout investments in middle-market companies in the energy, healthcare and media sectors.

The firm, which is based in New York City, was founded in 2005 when a team of professionals, led by Thompson Dean and Steven Webster, completed a spinoff from Credit Suisse's private equity arm DLJ Merchant Banking Partners to form a new private equity firm. Dean had previously been the co-head of DLJMB.

Avista completed fundraising for its first $2 billion fund in 2007. Avista closed on its second fund with $1.8 billion of commitments, which represents only 60% of its original a $3 billion target.

Avista was formed one year after Larry Schloss left DLJ Merchant Banking Partners to found Diamond Castle Holdings, a middle-market focused private equity firm. Unlike Diamond Castle, Avista received support from Credit Suisse for its debut fund.

The spinout of Diamond Castle and Avista from Credit Suisse First Boston came at the same time as the spinouts of private equity groups from other leading investment banks including: JPMorgan Chase (CCMP Capital), Citigroup (Court Square Capital Partners), Deutsche Bank (MidOcean Partners) and Morgan Stanley (Metalmark Capital).

In 2009, one of Avista's media acquisitions, the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper, the nation's 15th largest daily paper, fell into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In 2011, Avista acquired DataBank Ltd. an enterprise-class manage data center based in Dallas, TX. The company is expected to open a new facility towards the end of 2012.