Gilbert Lamphere
Profile
Mr. Lamphere headed 4 successive, operationally based private equity firms for 35 years, following five years (1976 – 1981) in the Mergers & Acquisitions group at Morgan Stanley where he was Vice President. The firms’ investment philosophy was to work with managements of medium sized companies in undiscovered, niche markets where a significant change in operational based strategy would transform results with limited risk to the base business. Between 1981 – 1999 Mr. Lamphere’s investments achieved a 62% IRR. When these markets became crowded with new capital, he shifted strategy to undiscovered public market segments and from 1999 – 2015 achieved an 18% IRR.
Mr. Lamphere has been a board member of several public and private companies. The public companies include: CSX ($70 billion Class I U.S. railroad), Canadian National ($90 billion transcontinental, Class 1 Canadian railroad), Illinois Central (2,700 mile Class I railroad from Chicago to New Orleans) (Chairman), Florida East Coast (a Class II Florida based railroad and real estate company), Recognition Equipment (optical character recognition systems) (Chairman), Cleveland Cliffs (iron ore), R.P. Scherer (pharmaceuticals), Global Natural Resources (oil and gas), Sylvan Inc. (farm produce) and Lincoln Snacks (snacks and foods). Mr. Lamphere was also a board member of the Fremont Group (Bechtel family), an investment and operating company with over $9 billion in assets. He also co-headed the raising and management of Fremont Group’s $605 million private equity fund.
Mr. Lamphere has been an Overseer of the Harvard School of Business Administration, a Trustee of the New York City Parks Foundation, and Chairman of three educational institutions: Deerfield Academy (Massachusetts), Nightingale-Bamford (New York) and the Hamlin School (San Francisco). He was Chairman of Princeton University’s 1000 person Development Leadership Council spanning two capital campaigns. He is currently on the Advisory Board of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of Johns Hopkins Medicine. (Baltimore, MD).
Mr. Lamphere graduated from Princeton University and from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and awarded the Loeb Rhoades Fellow Finance prize.
Mr. Lamphere is married to the former Martha O’Brien, and has four daughters (Louise, Helen, Ashley and Hillary) and a son (Gil Jr.). The Lampheres reside in Hobe Sound, Florida where Mr. Lamphere maintains offices and staff.