Walter Schloss, the money manager who earned accolades from Warren
Buffett for the steady returns he achieved by applying lessons learned
directly from the father of value investing,Benjamin Graham, has died.
He was 95.
He died yesterday at his home in Manhattan, according to his son, Edwin. The cause was leukemia.
From 1955 to 2002, by Schloss’s estimate, his investments returned 16
percent annually on average after fees, compared with 10 percent for
the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. (SPX) His firm, Walter J. Schloss
Associates, became a partnership, Walter & Edwin Schloss Associates,
when his son joined him in 1973.
“He was a true fundamentalist,” Edwin Schloss, now retired, said
today in an interview. “He did his fundamental analysis and was very
concerned that he was buying something at a discount. Margin of safety
was always essential.”
Buffett, another Graham disciple, called Schloss a “superinvestor” in
a 1984 speech at Columbia Business School. He again saluted Schloss as
“one of the good guys of Wall Street” in his 2006 letter to shareholders
of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
“Following a strategy that involved no real risk — defined as
permanent loss of capital — Walter produced results over his 47
partnership years that dramatically surpassed those of the S&P 500,”
wrote Buffett (BRK/A), whose stewardship of Berkshire Hathaway
(BRK) has made him one of the world’s richest men and most emulated
investors. “It’s particularly noteworthy that he built this record by
investing in about 1,000 securities, mostly of a lackluster type. A few
big winners did not account for his success.”
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