Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Tuesday, February 24th.

Today on Forbes, Forbes BLK-50, Money Masters, 2026.

More than 30 years have passed since Reginald Lewis made history by becoming the first

black American to own and operate a billion-dollar corporation

after he led the $985 million leveraged buyout of the food conglomerate Beatrice International.

His 1987 buyout made headlines on Wall Street, and by 1991, earned the Baltimore

native a spot on the Forbes 400, with a net worth of

$340 million, or roughly $830 million in current dollars.

He was the only black person to make the list of America's wealthiest that year.

Levoid Robinson, co-founder and CEO of CFI partners,

remember seeing Lewis on a magazine cover and says, quote,

it literally meant everything.

At the time, Robinson was a student at Howard University with his own dreams of success in finance.

Referring to having a career in private investment, he says,

quote,

it was proof that it's possible. It's actually possible that you can.

What many people overlook about Lewis's landmark deal is the foundation on which it was built.

Lewis had been a star athlete in high school and college, and after graduating from Harvard Law, he worked as a

corporate attorney for 15 years. In 1983, Lewis started TLC Group, a private equity firm at a time

when leveraged buyouts were often unwelcome and unpopular. The very next year, he purchased

McCall Pattern Company, a sewing products maker, for $22.5 million.

Lewis and his partners invested just $1 million and borrowed the rest.

...