Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary - 37

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Teamwork on the Path to Profits
1992 The distinctive team-based investment manage-

ment style that has become an OppenheimerFunds hallmark
dates back to a 1992 conversation between Ken Oberman,
longtime manager of the Oppenheimer Global Fund and
Oppenheimer Global Biotech Fund (which in 1991 returned
121%), and Bill Wilby, at the time a new portfolio manager. In
discussing his vision, Wilby explained that he planned to utilize
a team-based approach to direct the Firm's global equity investments. As Wilby recalled, Oberman said, "Whatever you do,
don't organize too much." For Wilby, who went on to a 16-year
career at the Company, including service as director of equities,
that remark became a guiding point. "We tried to grow in a
devolutionary sense, almost in a biological sense," he said.
Unlike many firms, where the investment philosophy and
strategy are set and driven from the top down, at OppenheimerFunds investment teams operate much like individual
boutique firms, each focusing on a different market sector or

asset class - but with
the difference that
these teams have the
resources of a larger
organization behind
them. Ultimately, the
Global Equity Team (2009): Bottom row (left to right):
Rajeev Bhaman, Rohit Sah, Frank Jennings; top row
Company's portfolio
(left to right): Dominic Freud, Randall Dishmon, George
managers have the
Evans, Shanquan Li.
autonomy to make
key decisions, but at every step they take into account a range of
team-based inputs from other portfolio managers and analysts.
Today, there are 10 investment teams - covering nearly every
asset class including municipal bonds, growth stocks, and international equities. Outside observers have noted that, in fundamental
ways, the concept of teamwork at OppenheimerFunds encompasses a grouping of specialized, highly sophisticated teams that
operate with substantial autonomy. n

GETTY IMAGES

OWNERSHIP CHANGES

1987
Oppenheimer Management Corp. moves into the
World Trade Center in New York.

The ownership changes that marked this period
were set in motion in 1982, when the partners who
owned Oppenheimer & Co. sold their business
to Mercantile House Holdings, a publicly owned
British financial services company. A few years later,
the Company's principals bought back the institutional money management business, Oppenheimer
Capital, and the retail brokerage, Oppenheimer
& Co. - but Mercantile retained ownership of
Oppenheimer Management Corp., the mutual
fund business. This ownership allocation is notable
because it marked the official separation of OppenheimerFunds from the rest of the Oppenheimer &
Co. businesses.
Mercantile's ownership of OppenheimerFunds
was largely passive. It left no discernible fingerprint
on the Firm other than prodding it to open an office
in the United Kingdom, which turned out to be a

shrewd move as the Company's British operation,
which was primarily focused on the sale of mutual
funds, prospered, according to Bridget Macaskill,
then chief operating officer at OppenheimerFunds
and later CEO.
That next ownership change occurred in 1987,
when another U.K. company - British & Commonwealth Holdings - bought Mercantile House
Holdings. A diversified corporation active in
financial services and also in high tech, British
& Commonwealth was a high flyer in the mid1980s when it acquired Mercantile (and
OppenheimerFunds).
That situation would take an abrupt turn within
just a few years, but in 1987 British & Commonwealth seemed a stable parent, and hands-on
involvement in the day-to-day conduct of business
at OppenheimerFunds was scarce.
Then on Black Monday, October 19, 1987, U.S.

In what will become known as Black Monday, on
October 19 the Dow plunges 508 points (22.6%)
to 1,738.74.

Under the leadership of Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, the
Soviet Union begins perestroika, a program of economic
restructuring.

1987

1988

1987-1994 Entrepreneurial Innovation

* 37

Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary

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