Stephen Rader

Stephen P. Rader is a co-founder and Managing General Partner of Clarity Partners, LP, a Los Angeles–based private equity firm founded in 1999 that focuses on media, telecommunications, and business services. The firm has had over $1 billion of assets under management and ranks among the largest media- and telecom-focused funds in the Western United States. Across its main vehicles (Clarity Partners L.P. and Clarity Partners II L.P.), the firm invested through the 2000s and has executed roughly 27 exits over its lifetime.

Before launching Clarity Partners, Rader co-founded Rader Reinfrank & Co., LLC in 1997, a roughly $100 million Los Angeles–based private equity fund. Earlier in his career he was Managing Director of Chartwell Partners, a private investment firm controlled by A. Jerrold Perenchio that concentrated on the communications industry. At Chartwell he led the acquisition of Univision Communications and its subsequent initial public offering. Prior to joining Chartwell in 1989, he was a Managing Director in the investment banking group at Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., where he served as lead banker on acquisition, restructuring, and financing transactions.

Rader's professional foundation is in law and accounting: from roughly 1981 to 1986 he practiced as a corporate securities attorney and was also a Certified Public Accountant. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California, earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Accounting) magna cum laude from the USC Marshall/School of Business, and a Juris Doctorate from the USC Gould School of Law, where he graduated valedictorian. He has served as a director of BASE Entertainment, Crescent Entertainment, and TelePacific Communications, among other portfolio boards.

• Invests primarily through Clarity Partners' private equity vehicles in media, communications/telecommunications, and outsourced business services, historically targeting control or significant minority positions rather than seed checks.
• Media activity has spanned motion-picture exhibition and libraries, consumer magazines and newspapers, cable programming networks, live entertainment, out-of-home advertising, and digital media services.
• Telecom and communications activity has included wireless carriers, fiber/competitive access, and next-generation infrastructure companies.
• Despite the firm's PE orientation, Rader is also tracked by data providers as an angel investor, indicating he occasionally backs earlier-stage companies (e.g., a healthcare house-call startup) outside the core fund mandate.
• His background as a securities attorney, CPA, and M&A investment banker shapes a thesis grounded in deal structuring, transaction execution, and operating-board oversight.