Teddy Forstmann's failure to find a successor means that his firm, Forstmann Little, is unlikely to survive him.

ECONOMIST: Face value

His operational guy this time was Dan Akerson, who had left MCI two years earlier for the buyout firm Forstmann Little.

FORBES: "We're On A Collision Course"

For all his firm's early successes, his archrivals at KKR are again living large while Forstmann Little is all but forgotten.

ECONOMIST: Ted Forstmann

In the 1990s, having taken big losses on overleveraged deals like the RJR buy-out, Forstmann Little's rivals replaced their leaders and grew into financial conglomerates, managing a wider variety of funds and going into consultancy.

ECONOMIST: Ted Forstmann