Dell Family Office (DFO)

Gregg Lemkau serves as CEO of DFO Management and Co-CEO of BDT & MSD Partners, the primary vehicle through which the Dell family deploys capital. Lemkau joined from Goldman Sachs in 2021 after rising to Co-Head of the firm's Investment Banking Division. He works alongside Byron Trott, who founded BDT & Company in 2009 after a three-decade career advising family-owned businesses at Goldman Sachs. Michael Dell remains the ultimate investment principal, with a demonstrated willingness to participate in large-scale strategic transactions such as the 2013 leveraged buyout of Dell Technologies alongside Silver Lake Partners.

MSD Partners was originally founded in 1998 by Glenn Fuhrman and John Phelan to manage Michael Dell's personal capital alongside external limited partners. In January 2023, MSD Partners merged with BDT & Company — the merchant bank founded by Byron Trott — to form BDT & MSD Partners. The Dell family are the largest investors in the combined platform. The resulting entity operates as a single advisory and investment firm managing capital for the Dell family, historical MSD limited partners, and external institutional investors, with DFO Management serving as the family's dedicated office.

The office pursues a direct-investment model, participating as a principal in transactions across growth equity, real estate, credit, and public equities rather than primarily committing to external funds. Through the merged BDT & MSD Partners platform, the office can also syndicate portions of its deals to aligned external families and institutional investors who participate via the BDT & MSD vehicles. This allows DFO to lead or co-lead large-scale transactions while earning management fees and carried interest from participating outside capital, a structure atypical of single-family offices.

DFO's real estate holdings concentrate heavily on luxury hospitality and landmark properties. Confirmed positions include the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows in Santa Monica, The Boca Raton resort in Florida, and the Grand Central Terminal air rights in Manhattan. The office also holds residential development sites including Sienna at Vista Lake in Las Vegas. These properties generate recurring operating income while providing long-duration asset appreciation that aligns with the family's perpetual investment horizon.

The wealth originates from Michael Dell's founding of Dell Technologies in 1984 at age 19. The company grew from a dorm-room PC assembler into one of the world's largest technology infrastructure providers. The 2013 leveraged buyout that took Dell private in partnership with Silver Lake Partners — at the time the largest technology LBO in history — allowed Michael Dell to increase his ownership stake significantly while insulating the company from public markets. The subsequent EMC acquisition in 2016 for $67 billion and the 2018 return to public markets via a complex tracking-stock transaction further expanded the fortune now managed through DFO.

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation operates as a separate entity from DFO Management and BDT & MSD Partners. The foundation focuses on education, health, and family economic stability initiatives, primarily in the United States, India, and South Africa. It maintains its own endowment and grant-making infrastructure distinct from the investment office. The foundation's assets are not commingled with DFO's investment capital, preserving the arms-length separation typical of large-scale family office philanthropy.

DFO actively co-invests alongside external general partners as a principal, most notably in the landmark 2013 Dell Technologies leveraged buyout with Silver Lake Partners. The office's integration with BDT & MSD Partners provides a ready network of family-business owners and long-duration capital partners with whom DFO can co-underwrite transactions. This co-investment posture allows the office to write larger equity checks than it could independently while diversifying single-asset concentration risk across a curated institutional partner base.