Outspoken billionaire Ken Fisher just lost a $600 million account over his controversial comments last week equating fundraising to approaching a woman in a bar to have sex.
The Michigan Department of Treasury, which oversees about $70 billion in the state’s pensions systems assets, fired Fisher’s eponymous firm over the comments — and said it will be withdrawing its $600 million, according to CNBC.
The withdrawal, which made headlines over the weekend, came days after Fisher, 68, shocked attendees at a Big Apple investment conference by comparing the process of soliciting new clients to convincing a woman you just met to have sex.
“Money, sex, those are the two most private things for most people,” Fisher said about winning new clients. “It’s like going up to a girl in a bar,” he said before changing it to “woman” in a bar, “and saying, ‘Hey, I want to talk about what’s in your pants,’” according to audio obtained by CNBC.
“I was floored,” said Rachel Robasciotti, a founder of wealth management firm Robasciotti & Philipson, told Bloomberg at the time.
It’s not the first time that Fisher, whose firm manages $112 billion, has worked blue at investment conferences, which are normally staid events. Last year, the best-selling author told attendees at another conference that he wishes he’d had more sex when he was younger, because “once you get older, you know you’re like a Christmas tree, you know you’re, you’re firm once a year and the balls are just for decoration,” according audio obtained by CNBC.
At the same conference, he said: “I mean the, the most stupid thing you can do, which is what every mutual fund firm in the world always did, was to brag about performance, uh, in, in a direct mail piece, which is a little bit like walking into a bar if you’re a single guy and you want to get laid and walking up to some girl and saying, ‘Hey, you want to have sex?’” CNBC reported.
“Some of the words and phrases I used during a recent conference to make certain points were clearly wrong and I shouldn’t have made them,” Fisher said in a statement.
Fisher’s comments were the talk of last week’s Big Apple investment conference, according to a Twitter video by Alex Chalekian, CEO of Lake Avenue Financial, who referred to the “fireside chat” as “a true debacle.”
“Everything has been fantastic, except for one little thing — and if you’re at the conference, you know what I’m talking about,” Chalekian said before blasting Fisher’s “absolutely horrifying” speech.
