Federated Investors co-founder remarkably skilled at sales
May 17, 1923 - Oct. 23, 2018
In 1951, Richard B. Fisher was a 28-year-old used car salesman at Motor Square Garden in East Liberty when he decided to join his Central Catholic High School classmate John F. Donahue in selling mutual funds for now-defunct King, Merritt & Co.
It was a pioneering venture at the time — the fledgling world of money management and investment firms was a new concept to many Americans, who began to regain confidence in the U.S. economy following the Great Depression and World War II.
Seeing the promise, the two men, along with Thomas J. Donnelly, founded their own investment firm in 1955, Federated Investors, from a street-level office in Downtown.
“My dad approached him, and said, ‘We’ll have a lot of fun. I don’t know if we’ll make any money, but we’ll have fun,’” said J. Christopher Donahue, president and CEO of Federated Investors.
It’s safe to say that both came true. Federated’s assets this year reached nearly $380 billion. With 108 funds, the company manages money for 8,500 entities, including corporations, government agencies, insurance companies, foundations and others. It employs about 1,800 people globally.
And Mr. Fisher, who helped lead the company for more than six decades, had a lot of fun along the way, Mr. Donahue said.
Mr. Fisher — freewheeling and eccentric, yet dedicated to an analytical and competitive penchant for selling financial products that became more sophisticated over the years — died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at the age of 95.
He grew up in Shadyside and graduated from Central Catholic in 1941. After serving in the Army, he graduated from The College of the Holy Cross in 1947 and married Barbara Mumford in 1949.
A phenomenal salesman from the start, Mr. Fisher spent a few years before diving into something a bit more challenging — and potentially more lucrative.
In a way, it was a personal decision: He was on the way to growing a large family — at the time of his death, he had seven children, 18 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren — and needed a line of business that could grow finances in tandem.
Mutual funds in the 1950s were emerging as a way the average person could put money in stocks, bonds and other securities while getting professional advice that was once limited to major investors. Mr. Fisher traveled from “door to door, kitchen table to kitchen table,” explaining the risks and rewards of various investment strategies, Mr. Donahue said.
As those funds’ popularity grew, so did Federated Investors.
Over decades, Mr. Fisher and Federated had to stay on top of new instruments as they were invented — including the index fund, which simply replicated the performance of a broader market index such as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, instead of a specific strategy drawn up by a fund manager.
In the 1970s, Mr. Fisher led the sales strategy and execution for the first fund to invest exclusively in government bonds. With Mr. Fisher’s traveling sales effort, Federated’s Fund for U.S. Government Securities helped build the company’s brand and educate the public about mutual funds.
“This guy had a Greek god’s constitution and was an all-around prince of a human being in both looks and attitude,” Mr. Donahue said. “He got his energy” from traveling to sell products, he said.
While starting out selling funds directly to the public, Federated now markets its funds and investment services to banks, brokerages, insurers and other institutions, which in turn sell Federated funds to their clients.
Mr. Fisher had a remarkable ability, even in later years, to stay active in the company and keep up with complex money maneuvers. Just last year, a 94-year-old Mr. Fisher gave a flawless presentation before the full sales staff on financial instruments.
Often, Mr. Fisher was the last stop for new sales staff before they were allowed to pitch a customer. They were required to give a presentation on a specific fund to Mr. Fisher, who offered, as Mr. Donahue put it, “a rigorous critique on the spot.”
“These were very, very challenging things for hundreds and hundreds of some of the best salespeople in the United States,” he said.
“You must be able to communicate effectively … you don’t meander, you get to the point,” he said. “It used to drive him crazy when one of the young people would say the word ‘um’ and ‘uh’ and pauses like that.”
Through it all, Federated remained a Pittsburghbased firm, eschewing the bright lights of a larger city that housed bigger pools of money.
“Pittsburgh was their home, and that’s where they wanted to raise their families,” Mr. Donahue said. “They didn’t want it to be in Boston or New York.”
Mr. Fisher was the last of the living Federated founders, after Mr. Donnelly and John F. Donahue’s deaths in 2011 and 2017, respectively.
Friends will be received from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at John A. Freyvogel Sons funeral home in Shadyside. The funeral and interment at Calvary Cemetery will be private. The family encourages contributions to Little Sisters of the Poor.