Bill Thompson
West 1973
Bill Thompson is a co-founder and managing director of the Real Estate Private Fund Group of Credit Suisse (formerly DLJ). The group is the largest real estate private fund placement agency business in the world.
Thompson’s company has offices in London, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, and affiliate offices in Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Dubai. In 2007, he and his partners were named by Private Equity Real Estate Magazine as one of the most influential players in the real estate private equity business. The group has raised over $35 billion for over 70 real estate investment firms worldwide since it was formed in 2000.
He and his team have raised real estate funds ranging in size from $100 million to $3 billion for public and private real estate investment firms, including Blackstone, Essex, Camden, Soros/Grove, Rockpoint, Praedium, Credit Lyonnais Asia and Credit Suisse. Investors in these funds include public and private pension plans, endowments and foundations, institutional international investors and high-net-worth investors.
For Thompson, success is the product of something very basic.
“Honesty comes first and is absolute for me and the people who represent our company,” he says. “Also, we work hard to be sure that every business deal is a win-win for everyone involved. Our biggest concern is that we do the best job possible representing our investors.”
Prior to co-founding Credit Suisse, Thompson was a managing director at Robertson Stephens, a San Francisco-based investment bank. He and his partners formed the Private Fund Group, which raised venture capital and real estate funds. He began his real estate career with what is now Jones Lang LaSalle as an acquisitions officer. As a managing director of LaSalle Advisors, he oversaw global fundraising for the company’s investment advisory business. Thompson began his business career as a marketing representative for the IBM Corp.
With Al Burr as his principal, Thompson set his goals high. “He always had a way of making you feel special,” he says. “Because of that, you actually tried your hardest to be his projection of what you could be, which always made you a better person, whether you got there or not. I’m still trying to reach his expectation of what I could be.”
Thompson earned his B.S. in business administration and German at Vanderbilt University in 1977, graduating cum laude. He went on to Northwestern University’s Kellog School of Management to earn his M.B.A. in 1982.
His commitment to doing his best has roots in his days as a student at West High. “Parkway had a way of making kids believe that they were special, and because of that belief, we often reached higher than we otherwise would have and became better people as a result,” he says.