Former Compaq and Hewlett-Packard executive Michael Capellas is slated to become the CEO of First Data later this year, following the $29 billion acquisition of the financial-transaction processor company by a private equity firm.
Earlier this year, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, a private equity firm, announced that it would buy Denver-based First Data for $29 billion. Capellas will succeed the current chairman and CEO Henry Duques.
Capellas is best known for fixing troubled companies and then selling them for large amounts. He helped broker the deal that led HP to buy Compaq for $18.5 billion in 2001. Later, in 2006, he helped sell MCI—formerly Worldcom – to Verizon for $8.5 billion.
Capellas served as Compaqs CEO from 1999 to 2002 and as its chairman of the board between 2000 and 2002. He later served as president of HP until in 2002. When he left HP, former CEO Carly Fiorina took over his duties as president of the Palo Alto, Calif., company.
Capellas went on to serve as the CEO of MCI from 2002 to 2006 and brought the company through bankruptcy proceedings before selling it to Verizon.
In April, First Data announced that it had been acquired by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for $29 billion. That deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year and Capellas will take over as CEO then.
