Ted Forstmann, Who Rang Alarm on Junk-Bond Buyouts, Dies at 71

Ted Forstmann, the Wall Street dealmaker who sounded the alarm in the 1980s when junk bonds reshaped the leveraged-buyout industry he had helped create, has died. He was 71.

He died yesterday at his home in New York City, according to George Sard, a spokesman for Forstmann Little & Co. The cause was brain cancer, for which he underwent surgery earlier this year. He told the New York Times in May that he was determined to live long enough to complete his rebuilding of IMG Worldwide Inc., the sports- and fashion-marketing company he led since buying it in 2004.