Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL) is the teddy bear at the gate. Known as a "friendly" leveraged buyout (LBO) firm, the company uses a mix of debt, funds from institutional investors, and its own money to buy companies. Unlike the fearsome LBO outfits of the 1980s, THL eschews the axe for the handshake; it builds up a stake and courts management cooperation. Lee then usually sells the revamped acquisitions or takes them public. The company teamed up with Bain Capital in 2008 to buy media titan Clear Channel for nearly $24 billion. Thomas H. Lee, who founded THL in 1974, left his namesake firm in 2006 to start Lee Equity Partners, a rival hedge fund and private equity venture.