Weiss

0

Richard Weiss

Senior Vice President

Sanwa Bank California

Age: 38

Though just 38, Richard Weiss, is in charge of investing more than $2 billion for Sanwa Bank California, a job usually reserved for those with a lot more gray on their temples.

The reasons for Weiss’ youthful ascent? “I started young. I skipped a couple grades in elementary school,” he said. “And I knew pretty early on what I wanted to do being in the business of investing money. I went straight to grad school from college.”

It helped that Weiss was computer literate, just as computers were coming onto the investment scene. Good track records at TSA Capital Management, and then Vanguard Global Advisers, led Sanwa to hire him in 1994 to manage assets in the bank’s trust department. Recently, Weiss was put in charge of investing for a group of mutual funds the bank has made available to the public, as well as to trust clients.

One of Weiss’ claims to fame is computer-driven asset allocation. Though there is a lot of babble about “stock pickers,” 90 percent of an investor’s performance is tied to what asset types an investor chooses to be in, said Weiss. Often, it is far more important to be roughly right in the right assets than precisely wrong. “That’s the major decision everyone has to make what type of investments do you make. That’s 90 percent of the game,” said Weiss.

“He is a quantitatively disciplined investment manager, but without fitting the stereotype of the computer nerd,” said Craig Lazzara, chief investment officer with Sherman Oaks-based Find Minder Inc., a money manager. “He’s quite well known in the field on international asset allocation.”

Weiss’ best investment ever? “I bought several cases in 1989 of Chateau Haute Brion at $60 a bottle in the futures market. Now it’s worth $600 a bottle. I plan to sell off a few bottles, to pay for everything, and consume the rest.”

No posts to display