Wall St. Dealmaker Wasserstein Dead at 61

Bruce Wasserstein, the CEO of Lazard Ltd. and one of Wall Street's most prominent dealmakers, is dead at 61. He had been hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat on Sunday. Wasserstein had been a fixture on Wall Street since the 1980s. He worked on such landmark deals as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts' takeover of RJR Nabisco, and the Morgan Stanley-Dean Witter and AOL-Time Warner mergers.

Aside from his work at Lazard, Wasserstein was chairman of Wasserstein & Co., a private investment firm. It has investments in companies ranging from Penton Media, a publisher of trade magazines, to gourmet food seller Harry & David. Wasserstein also owns New York Media Holdings LLC, which publishes New York magazine. (More Bruce Wasserstein stories.)