A quartet of investing legends founded Silver Lake eight years ago. Now a new foursome, none yet 40, looks to continue the firm’s tech dominance.

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We should have been out celebrating. That thought was on the minds of Greg Mondre and Egon Durban, two young partners with Silver Lake, as they holed up in an empty conference room in the firm’s office on 57th Street in Manhattan two years ago this past March, the sunset view over Central Park doing little to quell their uneasy feeling that a blockbuster transaction had suddenly fallen apart.

It had seemed like a done deal: the buyout — by a seven-firm private-equity consortium led by Silver Lake — of software technology vendor SunGard Data Systems for $11.3 billion, which would have been, at the time, the second-biggest LBO ever (behind only Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’s legendary RJR Nabisco buyout). After four months of grueling back-and-forth negotiations, the deal was all but wrapped up, an announcement set for later that week. But when news broke the previous morning about the impending buyout, SunGard’s stock soared, and now five members of the consortium were balking at the price. Mondre, 31 at the time, and Durban, 32, who had quarterbacked the deal since its inception, had just received word from SunGard’s board: Accept the price within 48 hours or the deal is off the table.

Left with just KKR’s muscle to help make the deal happen, the Silver Lake team began “dialing for dollars,” as one insider puts it. From late that evening into the next morning, they worked the phones. Mondre called the banks asking for more money, while Durban tried to round up additional private-equity firms to fill the vacant seats. They brought all hands on deck, an indication of the SunGard deal’s importance to Silver Lake: Mondre and Durban drew on the expertise and contacts of fellow partners Mike Bingle and Ken Hao, who were involved in early due-diligence meetings and familiar with the intricacies of the deal. Even the buyout firm’s cofounder Glenn Hutchins made a few calls on the fly.

By the time the deadline arrived, Silver Lake had brought back all but two original members of the team — the Carlyle Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners — and replaced them with deep-pocketed Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Providence Equity Partners.

“It was a great moment in Silver Lake’s history,” says one executive who worked on the transaction. “These guys stuck to their price rather than adhere to the pressure, and within twodays were able to line up new partners to salvage the deal.” Silver Lake’s success in pulling off a feat worthy of Houdini is a testament to the firm’s credibility as the leader in the technology-buyout space. It also underscores the newfound clout and capabilities of the quartet of young executives — Mondre, 33; Bingle, 35; Durban, 34; and Hao, 39 — all of whom have been at Silver Lake from, or near, the very beginning. (Mondre recalls picking out office furniture with Hutchins and setting up phone lines; Durban was at cofounder David Roux’s house shooting baskets with his kids while creating the company’s slide presentations.) The four have grown up with the firm, and in turn they rate among the most-touted players on Dealmaker’s 40 Under 40 list.

“By virtue of Silver Lake’s structure and the unique culture of the firm, our experience is a lot greater than our age would suggest,” Mondre says.

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