Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary - 12

Reprinting of From Opportunity to
Legacy: Celebrating the First Fifty Years

<< PROFILE

psychology at the City College of New York
where, ironically, his grades kept him out of
an advanced securities analysis course. Still,
in 1948 he started his career in the financial

a mutual fund with the management fee based
on performance rather than assets. He believed
this arrangement to be fair and responsible, since
the fund manager's rewards would be determined
by what the fund delivered to investors. He also
believed mutual funds would be attractive for small
investors since professionals would be picking the
stocks and risk would be spread among different
investments. And investors would be less likely to
defect if their broker left for another firm. Levy
understood that performance attracted customers
and that establishing a solid track record would
portend great things. The Oppenheimer Fund that
he helped shape, launch, and grow was the foundation of the business that became OppenheimerFunds.
Jack Nash joined Oppenheimer & Co. in 1951 as
Max Oppenheimer's assistant. A gifted trader, Nash
possessed an innate sense of where the market was
going on a day-to-day basis. His leadership guided
the Firm during periods of dramatic growth.

When asked how he chose investments, Nash said
in 1978, "The stock market has become inefficient
in judging the value of medium-sized and smaller
companies. Very simply, we're buying values."
Nash made sure no ethical lines were crossed as
trades got larger and pressures mounted - he was,
wrote Levy, "the Cerberus of the Firm." He is credited
with providing the kind of leadership that kept the
growing business on the right track.

THE PEOPLE FACTOR
Early hiring underscored the importance of talent
and drive over direct experience. Oppenheimer, Levy,
and Nash felt that for creative things to happen, it
was necessary to hire people with different perspectives and diverse ways of thinking. "Every now and
then, a would-be analyst would surprise me with
highly original thinking," wrote Levy. "Over time, we
assembled a highly regarded research department."

1953

Leon Levy joins Oppenheimer & Co. as one of the
brokerage Firm's first partners and director of research.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces
that he will not seek reelection.

1951

1952

12 * OppenheimerFunds: The First Fifty Years

Milwaukee Railroad for almost nothing in
1983 and eventually selling them for $150
each after the sale of valuable assets. Philanthropy was also a big part of Levy's life,
particularly causes that reflected his passion
for history and antiquities. He wrote that his
love of archaeology was similar to his fascination with investing, citing "the delicious
thrill of finding something that confounds
the conventional wisdom." In 1990, a dig
in Israel that he and his wife, Shelby White,
were supporting made the spectacular
discovery of a golden calf similar to the
one described in the Bible. His memoir, The
Mind of Wall Street: A Legendary Financier
on the Perils of Greed and the Mysteries of
the Market, recounts his five decades as a
Wall Street innovator. n

Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated as the
34th president of the United States.

COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Leon Levy
1925-2003 Leon Levy studied

industry as an analyst, and in 1951 he
joined Oppenheimer & Co. as director of
research, becoming one of the Firm's first
and youngest partners. The affable Levy
became known for his commonsense
approach and his belief that investing is as
much a psychological act as an economic
one. He led the Firm into the mutual fund
business, popularized the concept of tying
fund manager fees to fund performance,
and paved the way for the launch of the
Oppenheimer Fund in 1959. Levy was a
pioneer in recognizing how to make money
on companies' depressed assets - first in
the 1970s wave of leveraged buyouts and
later by investing in bankrupt companies.
His most famous deal was buying the shares
of the parent company of the Chicago and

Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary

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