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Michael Capellas has a new company to sell

Tim Faulkner · 07/11/07 12:10PM

If there's one thing Michael Capellas knows, it's how to make money fast. After becoming Compaq's CEO in 1999, he turned the company around — and turned around and sold it to Hewlett-Packard in 2002. Tenure as CEO? Three years. He then joined the bankrupt MCI in December2002. MCI emerged from bankruptcy in 2004, and by February 2005, Capellas sold MCI to Verizon for $7.6 billion. Tenure as CEO? Just over two years. Now, Capellas, most recently an advisor to Silver Lake Partners, was named CEO of First Data Corporation, a payment-processing company recently taken private by KKR. Tenure as CEO? At the rate he's going, Capellas still being the CEO of First Data in 2009 would be a real surprise. (Photo by Ben Baker for Fortune)