Bosco Joins Clarity, Raising $1B Fund –

LOS ANGELES – Harry Bosco, former president of Lucent Technologies’ Optical Networking Group, planned to join Clarity Partners on October 16, the newly named special venture partner said.

He will join just as the firm expects to hold a first close on its freshman vehicle, the $1 billion-targeted Clarity Partners LP, which will likely close sometime during the first quarter 2001, R. Rudolph Reinfrank, a managing partner at the firm said.

The firm will back early- to late-stage network infrastructure, wireless services and applications, communications service providers, e-commerce and broadband media companies.

Bosco’s wealth of contacts, industry expertise and experience as a skilled executive makes him a perfect fit for the firm, Reinfrank said. Bosco said he is responsible for identifying key areas in which the firm should invest, putting together management teams and going after targeted market sectors.

Bosco, who likes working with entrepreneurial teams, “had several hundred offers for positions – everything from venture partners to chief executive officers of companies,” he said. Bosco chose Clarity Partners because he felt comfortable with the partners, especially with firm co-founder and managing general partner David Lee, with whom he has had a long-standing relationship, Reinfrank said.

Clarity Group, an equal partnership formed between Clarity Partners and Marubeni Group, a Japanese-based trading house, will invest up to $450 million in Hitachi’s optical component division, which is spinning out to become a U.S.-based company. The closing of that investment is subject to Japanese regulatory authority approval, which is expected by year’s end, Reinfrank said. Lee will act as the co-chairman of that company.

Stephen Rader and Reinfrank, founders of the private equity firm, Rader Reinfrank & Co. LLC, and Barry Porter and Lee, founders of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based telecommunications company, Global Crossing Ltd., are the co-founders and managing general partners of Clarity Partners.

The firm’s founders will invest the fund along with General Partner Joshua Gutfreund, Special Venture Partners Paul Santinelli and Bosco, Chief Financial Officer W. Jack Kessler, Managing Director Steven Greenberg, and Associate Andrew Howard.