20th century financial titan Neuberger dies at 107
10:16am EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Roy R. Neuberger, a giant among 20th century American financiers, stock brokers and patrons of the arts, has died at Manhattan's Pierre Hotel at 107, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

Neuberger, founder of investment firm Neuberger Berman, had lived most of his long life in New York City, the Times reported.

The paper cited Neuberger's grandson, Matthew London, as saying Neuberger had died on Friday at his home at the famous hotel overlooking Central Park.

Born on July 21, 1903 to a wealthy Jewish family that moved to Manhattan from Connecticut in 1909 -- Neuberger was orphaned at the age of 12.

He dropped out after just one year at New York University but eventually continued his education with a sojourn in Europe from 1924, living comfortably on inherited money.

He had developed an eye for painting and sculpture while working as a fabric buyer at the B. Altman & Co department store, where he also acquired a sense for trading, which he later applied to the trading of financial products.

During his European fling in his early 20s, Neuberger made the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris his home base.

The young bon vivant and art lover played tennis, frequented the Louvre and other museums and formed a lifelong friendship with art historian Meyer Schapiro.

But he was also inspired at this time by a biography of Vincent van Gogh to collect and support the work of living artists, who like van Gogh often led hard lives of poverty.

To raise the funds he would need to acquire contemporary art, he went to work on Wall Street in the spring of 1929, just as the bull market of the Roaring '20s was near its peak.

BOLD GAMBLE

One early trade helped define Neuberger's career, and helped make his reputation as a money manager. In mid-1929, using his own money, he sold short 100 shares of the Radio Corporation of Americas, the most feverishly bid stock of its era, which was trading around $500 a share.

When the market crashed in October 1929, Neuberger's gamble helped offset losses in other blue-chip stocks and allowed him to leverage his wealth as the market gradually recovered over the next decade.

He met his future wife, Marie Salant, an economics graduate of Bryn Mawr College, at the Halle & Stieglitz Co brokerage where they both worked at the time. They married at the depth of the Great Depression in June 1932.

Inspired by his success at managing his personal assets, he co-founded Neuberger Berman in 1939 with Robert Berman. The two men established one of the first no-load U.S. mutual funds, the Guardian Fund, which is still in operation.

His firm was eventually acquired by Lehman Brothers but spun off again in 2008 as an independent asset management fund when Lehman sold off assets as it went into bankruptcy.

Never forgetting van Gogh, Neuberger began to build his art collection in the late 1930s, focusing on contemporary art, and he never sold a painting by a living artist, the Times said.

"I collect art because I love it," the paper quoted him as saying, and not for its investment value.

In 1967, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller offered to build a museum at the New York State University at Purchase that would serve in part as a repository for Neuberger's collection. The museum opened in May 1974.

He donated other major works in his collection -- which included paintings by Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Milton Avery, to New York's Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

At the age of 104, Neuberger was awarded the 2007 U.S. National Medal of Arts.

(Writing by Todd Eastham; Editing by Sandra Maler)


Dan

Roy, you survived the crash of '29, founded the firm on the dawn of WW2, introduced no-load mutual funds to the public in the 50s/60s, kept your firm independent until it went public in '99, sold it to Lehman in '03, and after Lehman imploded in the Crash of '08, you pulled through. Did one better than that, in fact - because rather than letting Lehman selling it out to Bain for a couple of billion, your own employees bought the firm back for themselves.

You showed four (five?) generations of investors and employees how ass was to be kicked.  Rest in peace, Roy; you earned it.

Roy, you survived the crash of '29, founded the firm on the dawn of WW2, introduced no-load mutual funds to the public in the 50s/60s, kept your firm independent until it went public in '99, sold it to Lehman in '03, and after Lehman imploded in the Crash of '08, you pulled through. Did one better than that, in fact - because rather than letting Lehman selling it out to Bain for a couple of billion, your own employees bought the firm back for themselves.

You showed four (five?) generations of investors and employees how ass was to be kicked.  Rest in peace, Roy; you earned it.


It's a heartbreaking story of a young man struck down at the tender age of 107 after a riches to riches life of relentless success checked only by sojourns to the Left Bank to collect Van Goghs.  Tragic, just tragic!
:\'(

Van Gogh, Pollock, de Kooning...I collected works by all three as a young man...on $10 prints from the Harvard Coop!
:-\\

Tragic, just tragic!


LOL, you misunderstand me.  You said it yourself; there's nothing tragic about this!  

A good game of pinball ends with "dammit".  The player gets a tilt warning as he fails to save his fifth or sixth ball, and pounds his fist against the metal bar at the edge of the playfield in frustration, waits for the match to come up - and walks away when it misses.  Some of us rack up a few more points than others, but we all walk away feeling we coulda done better.

But a great game of pinball ends with "time's up, gotta go!".  The player walks away from a game, grinning as he leaves hundreds of billions of points on the scoreboard for the next player to sign his or her initials, and 20 free credits racked up for whoever wants to play next.

Ever since I was a young boy, I'd play the silver ball.
From New York on to NASDAQ, I musta played 'em all.
Well I ain't seen nothin' like him, never gets a margin call.
At one hundred seven - Roy played a mean pinball.

LOL, you misunderstand me.  You said it yourself; there's nothing tragic about this!  

A good game of pinball ends with "dammit".  The player gets a tilt warning as he fails to save his fifth or sixth ball, and pounds his fist against the metal bar at the edge of the playfield in frustration, waits for the match to come up - and walks away when it misses.  Some of us rack up a few more points than others, but we all walk away feeling we coulda done better.

But a great game of pinball ends with "time's up, gotta go!".  The player walks away from a game, grinning as he leaves hundreds of billions of points on the scoreboard for the next player to sign his or her initials, and 20 free credits racked up for whoever wants to play next.

Ever since I was a young boy, I'd play the silver ball.
From New York on to NASDAQ, I musta played 'em all.
Well I ain't seen nothin' like him, never gets a margin call.
At one hundred seven - Roy played a mean pinball.


When I was a little biddy boy
My grandma bought me a cute little toy
Two Silver bells on a string
She told me it was my ding-a-ling-a-ling

My Ding-A-Ling My Ding-A-Ling won't you play with My Ding-A-Ling
My Ding-A-Ling My Ding-A-Ling won't you play with My Ding-A-Ling

When I was little boy In Grammar school
Always went by the very best rule
But Every time the bell would ring
You'd catch me playing with my ding-a-ling

-- Chuck Berry

Not that it has much to do with anything,
except that Roy can no longer play with his Ding-a-Ling!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/11/angel5.gif