Swid was also noted for founding SBK Entertainment and was also previously the co-owner of General Felt Industries, Sheller-Globe Corporation, Knoll International and the 21 Club, along with partner Marshall Cogan.
He went on to become founder and senior partner of Swid Investors, an investment limited partnership, as well as a general partner of the private management company City Associates, a senior investment officer at Oppenheimer Funds, and a securities analyst of the Dreyfus Fund.
Swid's first deal was the takeover of General Felt Industries (GFI) in 1974, which he completed with fellow investment banker Marshall Cogan.
[4] Cogan was unsuccessful in his high-profile bids to acquire the Boston Red Sox, Sotheby's[5][6] and L.F. Rothschild in the buyout boom of the 1980s.
From February 1990 until January 1995, Swid was chairman and chief executive officer of Westview Press, an academic publishing company based in Boulder, Colorado, and from 1989 until 1997 the chairman and chief executive officer of Spin, a music and youth culture magazine.