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Fund chief Alger missing
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September 12, 2001: 3:35 p.m. ET
Top Wall Street stock picker unaccounted for in aftermath of attacks
By Staff Writer Parija Bhatnagar
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - David Alger, a well-known Wall Street veteran and chief executive of Fred Alger Management, is among those unaccounted for in Tuesday's devastating attacks on New York's World Trade Center, the company said Wednesday.
"The terrorist attack is a very personal tragedy for my family as well as for all of our employees and their families," said Fred Alger, who founded the 35-year-old investment management firm his brother ran.
David Alger, 57, is one of the high-profile names in the mutual funds industry, renowned for his aggressive buying and selling of growth stocks.
Alger's office was on the 93rd floor of one of the twin towers destroyed in Tuesday's attacks.
Fred Alger, who retired last year as chairman of the firm, was resuming the post effective immediately, the company said.
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David Alger, CEO of Fred Alger Management. | |
Of the firm's 55 employees that worked at the World Trade Center, approximately 38 remain unaccounted for. The firm, which employees 235 people worldwide, said it is moving its headquarters to Morristown, N.J.
"Fortunately, a nucleus of research analysts survived the attack," Alger said. "Clearly we have experienced a loss of enormous magnitude. But we will spare no expense in aggressively rebuilding this firm, beginning today."
David Alger is best known for his Spectra mutual fund, an aggressive – and volatile – portfolio focused on technology stocks. He has managed the fund since 1974 and was named one of the 10-best managers of the 1990s by MONEY magazine.
"Clearly the Spectra Fund had been the fund industry's best-performing large-growth fund over the last 10 years" said Bradley Sweeney, an analyst with funds tracker Morningstar. "It beat out 98 percent of its peers in the large-growth category. The fund is very aggressive, and over the long-term it's been very impressive."
Spectra Funds delivered 10-year annualized returns of 17.09 percent year-to-date, putting it in the top 2 percent of its group, and five-year annualized returns year-to-date of 11.61 percent.
Those numbers looked even better until last year. Alger was hit hard by the decline in technology stocks. Over the last 12 months Spectra was down 46 percent, and down 25 percent year to date.
Alger is also famous for training future industry stars, some of whom got their start at the firm's headquarters at the World Trade Center, including Helen Young Hayes of Janus, Tom Marsico of Marsico Capital Management, and Warren Lammert at Janus Mercury. 
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