By ANTON FRENCH 14/03/2008
This week the city has mourned the loss of fund managers Nils Taube and Tony Dye, both unique in their own way
Nils Taube
On the 11th of March 2008, it was announced that Nils Taube had passed away after being taken ill while checking stock prices on his Bloomberg terminal at 7.30am. Taube had a long career and witnessed the best & worst of stock market performance, from the bad times in the 1970s and the crisis in 1987 to the technology bubble of the late 1990s. Born in Estonia in 1928, Taube moved to London in 1946 where his first job was for stockbroker KitCat & Aitkin. Taube gained early success by exploiting the undervalued German stock market, worked alongside George Soros and in December 1969 he created a unit trust, known today as the SJP Greater European Progressive. In 1982 he became group Director of Investments at J Rothschild when they bought a stake in KitCat & Aitken and later gained fame by selling his positions before the market fell in October 1987’s “Black Monday”.
In 1996, Taube alongside John Hodson and Cato Stonex bought out Rothschild and the firm’s mandates to create THS Partners, becoming chairman of the new group. He resigned from THS in July 2006 (Bestinvest continue to rate the THS International Growth & Value fund and the Electric & General Investment Trust under Hodson and Stonex), but his passion for day to day investing remained and in July 2007 he launched a new firm and a new fund called S&W Taube Global.
Tony Dye
On the 14th of March 2008, it was announced that Tony Dye had passed away at the age of 60. Dye’s roles included CIO of Philips & Drew where he famously predicted the collapse of technology stocks before it occurred in the spring of 2000. Dye was a value investor and during the 1990s suffered terrible relative underperformance due to his investment style before his views were ultimately vindicated. Dye retained his bearish views, predicting to newspapers that house prices will fall 30% by the end of 2009 and ‘we don’t have soft landings in things like this ever’.
Bestinvest passes its condolences onto both of their families.