Who

Lasry is the co-founder of the Avenue Capital Group, a leading distressed fund with more then $12 billion under management. He's also Chelsea Clinton's boss.

Backstory

A native of Marrakesh, Lasry arrived in the U.S. at the age of seven and grew up in Connecticut where, because he didn't speak any English, he was inexplicably placed in a class with Spanish speaking kids. After attending Clark University, Lasry says he planned to take a job at UPS—until, that is, his wife convinced him to pursue a slightly more lucrative line of work and he decided to enroll at New York Law School instead. Clerking for a bankruptcy judge during law school provided him with his first exposure to the distressed investing world. After a short stint at a law firm and positions at several financial firms around town, in 1989 he formed his first company, Amroc Investments, with backing from Texas billionaire Robert Bass, the brother of Sid Bass. In 1995, anticipating a surge in bankruptcies, Lasry founded Avenue Capital with help from the Texas Pacific Group's David Bonderman, one of Bass's former protégés. Avenue now oversees some $12 billion. His partner in the firm is his sister, Sonia Gardner.

Of note

Lasry may not like being labeled a vulture investor, but he readily admits that his Avenue is just hovering overhead, waiting for the rate of US corporate bankruptcies to pick up once again. Thanks to the global credit crisis, it looks like he's getting his wish. But even before the market started to melt in 2007, Lasry was enjoying a solid run, as evidenced by a deal in 2006 that gave Morgan Stanley a 20 percent stake in the fund and valued Avenue between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. (The deal spurred talk that Avenue would pursue an IPO, although the market downturn seems to have shelved any plans Lasry had to take the firm public.) Over the past couple of years, Lasry has been busy expanding abroad. He now has 20 people in Beijing seeking out potential investment opportunities, and in 2004 he launched a European vulture fund .

Keeping score

Forbes pegs Lasry's net worth at $2.0 billion. According to Trader Monthly, he took home $200-$250 million in 2007.

For the record

Lasry's most famous employee, of course, is Chelsea Clinton, who joined the company after working at McKinsey. How'd she end up at Avenue? Lasry and his sister, Sonia Gardner, are prominent Democratic fundraisers and have donated tens of thousands to the party as well as to various Democratic candidates.

Personal

Lasry met his wife, Cathy Cohen, at college. They married when Lasry was in law school and now have five kids. They live in a 14,000-square-foot red-brick townhouse just off Fifth Avenue on East 74th Street that was once occupied by pop star Michael Jackson (and, in the 1940s, by artist Marc Chagall). They have a weekend home in Westport, Conn. that they purchased for $14.7 million in 2005.

Board game

Lasry and his wife have been picking up board seats right and left. He recently joined the board of the Big Apple Circus, The 92nd Street Y and Mount Sinai Hospital. A trustee of New York Law School since 2004, Lasry donated $5 million to his alma mater to construct the Lasry Center for Bioscience, which opened in January 2005. His wife sits on Clark's board and serves as a trustee of Trevor Day School.