Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary - 25

By focusing on performance,
sales, innovative products,
and the recruitment of talented employees regardless
of their background, the
Company was able to successfully navigate the rapidly
changing times and set itself
up for continued growth
throughout the 1970s and
into the next decade.

1969
A gathering of wholesalers (from left): Dan Calabria, then the N.J./Western N.Y. wholesaler; Stan Egener, Metro NYC;
Don Spiro, president of Oppenheimer Management Corp.; Ed Smith, California; and Dick Samartin, Mid-Atlantic.

LEFT BOTTOM: GETTY IMAGES

throughout the 1960s, it was still, at least by today's
standards, small and little understood by the American public. The unveiling of money market funds
was a critical point in introducing more people to
the value of mutual funds. "Money market funds
may have opened the door to the industry," said Jim
Swain, who held numerous executive-level positions at OppenheimerFunds, including chairman
of the board of directors/trustees of the Denverbased mutual funds. "You could write checks, you

1971
A flurry of activity inside the New York Stock Exchange during
the 1971 dollar crisis, when President Nixon stopped gold convertibility to stabilize the dollar. Image replaced

earned interest, and you had total liquidity and usually a pretty good rate of return. So more and more
people became aware of the money market funds, and
that led to investing in equity and bond funds."
OppenheimerFunds, with its expanding product
line, was able to continue growing even as the overall
stock market and economy encountered difficulties.
What had been an optimistic time on Wall Street in
the 1960s gave way to pessimism about the war in
Vietnam and the Arab oil embargo in the early 1970s.
Those troubles were reflected in the stock market. In
1974 alone the Dow Jones fell 45%.
One of the ways the Firm was able to navigate
these down times was by offering numerous funds
and allowing investors to move their money among
them: a concept known as the family of funds. "This
was the story we were trying to get out to brokerage
houses and individual financial planners - to look
at us as a family of funds and use this concept to help
customers become financially independent," said Dan
MacDonald, who was with the Company from 1972
to 1986, eventually becoming national sales manager.
MacDonald is another example of the Company's

openness to nontraditional talent; he had been a
Maryknoll priest based in Japan before Don Spiro
hired him.
By the mid-1970s, the transformation of
OppenheimerFunds was nearly as complete as that of
the investment world the Firm inhabited. By focusing
on performance, sales, innovative products, and the
recruitment of talented employees regardless of their
background, the Company was able to successfully
navigate the rapidly changing times and set itself up
for continued growth throughout the 1970s and into
the next decade. n
During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Firm worked to establish
mutual funds, including its new money market fund, as a viable
investment, promoting the concept on the basis of simplicity
and convenience as well as performance. The next step was to
offer its customers a wide range of these innovative products.

An investment in a money market fund is not insured or guaranteed
by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. Although money market funds seek to preserve the
value of an investment at $1.00 per share, it is possible to lose money
by investing in a money market fund.

Oppenheimer Special Fund (now the
Oppenheimer Capital Appreciation
Fund) launches.

Oppenheimer Money Market Fund
launches.

Oppenheimer Fund reports total assets
of $329,006,630 the year President Nixon
resigns from office.

1972

1973

1974

1959-1974 Growth

and Transition * 25

Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary

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