Ken Fisher, the founder and chief executive of the well-known hedge fund manager Fisher Investments, has found himself in a heap of trouble following some sexually unsavory comments he made at an industry event in San Francisco last week. He has already lost a US$600 million mandate as a result.
According to the Washington Post on the weekend, the state of Michigan has pulled US$600 million of its pension fund from wealth management firm Fisher Investments after the company’s founder and chairman made crude and sexually explicit comments during a fireside chat at the Tiburon CEO Summit in San Francisco this week.
“In a letter Thursday, Michigan Chief Investment Officer Jon Braeutigam informed the state’s investment board that its bureau of investments, housed under the state Treasury Department, had terminated its relationship with Fisher Investments because of CEO Ken Fisher’s “completely unacceptable comments,” the Post reported here These CEOs broke the rules at a secretive summit to expose a billionaire’s crude sexual comments.
During a moderated keynote discussion Tuesday with Chip Roame, managing partner at Tiburon Strategic Advisors, Fisher compared his wealth management strategy to picking up women for sex, according to summit attendees who recounted what they heard in interviews with the ‘Washington Post’.
Fisher spoke of doing acid and his belief that charities were immoral, the newspaper said. He also made crude comments about genitalia, attendees said, and mentioned financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges earlier this year before dying by suicide in prison.
The ‘Post’ said: “Fisher, 68, had been previously honoured at the ‘Tiburon CEO Summit’ and has written 11 books, regularly writes newspaper columns on finance and has a net worth of US$3.7 billion. His conversation on the main stage with Chip Roame, managing partner at Tiburon Strategic Advisors, was a keynote event open to all 220 participants. There were no competing panels.”
Greg Bright is publisher of Investor Strategy News (Australia)