Michael Psaros

Michael Psaros, 46, is a co-founder and managing partner of private equity fund KPS Capital Partners, LP, and a member of its investment committee. KPS Capital Partners, LP is the manager of KPS Special Situations Funds, a family of private equity funds with over $6 billion of assets under management. KPS takes controlling stakes in troubled companies, brings new capital and ideas and builds constructive relationships with unions. It specializes in distressed industrial companies. Mr. Psaros and the Co-Founders of KPS have successfully developed and executed a proprietary investment strategy that resulted in the creation of vibrant and successful enterprises out of assets or companies that were close to shutdown or liquidation, suffering from a history of operating losses, operating in bankruptcy, or in default of obligations to creditors. The son of George and Mary Ann Psaros and grandson of Greek immigrants, Psaros grew up in Weirton, W.V., where the lifeblood of the town was the steel industry, specifically National Steel. Psaros’ father was an electrical engineer in the mill, and his grandfather worked at a Weirton open hearth furnace in the days when E.T. Weir owned the mill. In 1983, union steelworkers voted to purchase the company with the help of investment banker Eugene Keilin, renaming it Weirton Steel. The buyout saved the town, and inspired Psaros to think about how management and labor could work together to revitalize the flagging manufacturing industry in America. Psaros began his career as an investment banker at Bear, Sterns & Co., Inc. During the 1990s, he worked for Keilin, who by then had created his own firm with a colleague. When that colleague left, Keilin, Psaros, and another partner founded KPS in 2006. The firm’s most recent success is Global Brass and Copper, a Schaumburg, Ill., manufacturer that KPS acquired in November 2007, a month before the onset of the Great Recession. Investors in the KPS fund that acquired the metals producer have received $650 million from their investment since 2010. Psaros graduated from Georgetown University with a B.S.B.A. degree in finance, and attended Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan.