Monday, July 16, 2012

Sad News: Legendary Fund Manager Barton Biggs Has Died


Barton Biggs, the former Chief Global Strategist for Morgan Stanley, has died after a short illness, CNBC reported this morning, citing a memo from the bank's CEO James Gorman.  He was 79.
Biggs, born in 1932, had a Wall Street career nothing short of illustrious.  Graduating from Yale in 1955, Biggs did a stint as an English teacher at the Landon School in Bethesda, MD while playing semi-professional soccer and trying to write "the great American Short Story," Bloomberg reported in 2006.

In 1961 he joined E.F. Hutton at a salary of $7,200 a year. Biggs moved to Morgan Stanley in 1973 as a managing director and partner (the first ever to be brought in from outside of the firm). He went on to form the firm's research department and served as its Chief Global Strategist until he retired in 2003.  Upon his retirement Biggs founded the Connecticut-based hedge fund Traxis Partners, telling Bloomberg in 2006 that he had no interest in typical retirement activities

His influence was profound over the latter portion of the twentieth century; SmartMoney wrote, "It wouldn't be a stretch to say Biggs wrote the book on emerging-market investment." Biggs also called the tech bubble over a year before it burst. ….

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