Nolan has been with Los Angeles-based Leonard Green for the past 17 years, and currently is a director of portfolio companies AerSale Holdings, Activision, Aspen Dental Management, Motorsport Aftermarket Group, The Palms Hotel and Casino and Scitor Corporation. Prior deals include FTD Group, Liberty Group Publishing, VCA Antech,  Wavetek Corp., White Cap Industries and Adidas AG.

Nolan wrote the following this evening, in an email to friends and colleagues:

After 17 years at Leonard Green & Partners, I have decided to transition from Managing Partner to Senior Advisor.  This was something I initiated earlier this year, and it has been 100% my decision. I intend to increase my focus on my foundation and other charitable endeavors and to take a more active role in managing my family office.  I will continue to work with my colleagues at Leonard Green as a Senior Advisor. I will maintain an office at LGP, and I will continue to represent the firm and our investors on a number of portfolio boards.

From my first job on Wall Street in 1982 to my current role at Leonard Green, it has been a humbling privilege to have worked with some of the very best firms in the industry: Drexel Burnham, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, and finally Leonard Green.  I am extraordinarily proud to have devoted 17 years to LGP, which has grown assets over 30 fold since I joined.

My fellow Managing Partners, Jon Sokoloff and John Danhakl, have been my brothers in business for the past 28 years since we were first bankers at Drexel Burnham in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s.  They possess two of the most brilliant minds in the private equity business, and it has been an honor to work with them to help build Leonard Green into one of the leading private equity firms in the world today. We have built a firm that always places our investors’ interests before our own, and while we’ve grown considerably, we still maintain a family-like culture at Leonard Green.  We have been blessed with great employees, loyal investors and opportunities to team with some of the most talented executives in the world at our portfolio companies. Leonard Green’s success is a testament to the collective contribution of all of our stakeholders.

Leonard Green currently is investing out of a $6.25 billion fund that closed in 2011. It is expected to begin raising its seventh fund within the next year.

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