Growing Rich - Arabictrader.com

GROWING RICH WITH GROWTH STOCKS
outlet. I eventually named Andrew president of the company after
Martin retired in December 1995.”
Andrew Davis lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is where
Davis Selected Advisers is headquartered. How it wound up there is
a story in itself. When Martin Proyect left Calvin Bullock Limited, he
acquired Sir Hugh Bullock’s 51 percent ownership interest in Venture
Fund’s management company. He then decided to relocate from New
York to Santa Fe. Proyect and his wife were both in their midforties,
and his wife wanted to move to a smaller town to start a furniture
store. He realized he could market the funds from anywhere, as long
as he had a phone and access to an airport.
Proyect also has a legal background and was instrumental in convincing
the Selected board to let Davis take over management of the
funds. “I have always been the money manager,” Davis says. “Martin
was able to answer all of the legal questions. When he retired a few
years ago, I bought out his interest and made Andrew president.” In
1995, Davis named his longtime associate and former business partner
Jeremy Biggs chairman of the Davis Funds. Davis Selected Advisers,
the management company, is now almost entirely owned by the
Davis family and the firm’s senior managers, although Biggs maintains
a minority interest.
CHRISTOPHER DAVIS
Chris studied philosophy and theology at St. Andrew’s University
in Scotland and originally thought of becoming a priest. After concluding
that the family investment bug was too strong to resist, he
went to work after graduation for State Street Bank as an accountant
for international funds. Following some basic training there, he joined
Graham Tanaka at Tanaka Capital Management, the subadviser to
the Davis Growth Opportunity Fund. “Tanaka’s a traditional analyst
trained by J. P. Morgan and Fiduciary Trust. He taught Chris the tools
of the trade,” Davis says. “About two years later, my father’s health
started to fail. Dad asked if someone from the family could come
work for him, and Chris took up the opportunity with the understanding
that he would really be working with me, since I was helping my
father, too. We also saw the day coming when we would merge the
two firms and put the money my father had made into the mutual
funds. It was really more of a transition that Chris was brought in to
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