Charles H. Brunie

Charles H. Brunie started Oppenheimer Capital in 1969 and was chairman until May 1996 when he became Chairman Emeritus, marking over 33 years with Oppenheimer. He graduated from Amherst College in 1952. After two years in the Army, he then studied with Graham and Dodd at Columbia University's Business School, from which he received a MBA in 1956.

After six years as a security analyst, first for New York Life Insurance Co. and then for one of the early institutional research firms, Faulkner, Dawkins & Sullivan, Mr. Brunie joined Oppenheimer. In two years, he became head of institutional research and was made a partner. In 1969, he became head of all research and investment strategy, a member of the partnership's executive committee, and concurrently started the investment advisory department. In time, this entity became the investment counseling firm which is now Oppenheimer Capital, part of PIMCO and, since late 2000, Allianz of Germany. (As a point of interest, while Mr. Brunie was responsible for research, the Oppenheimer brokerage firm was ranked as the number one research firm by Institutional Investor for four years.) He remained with Oppenheimer Capital through 2000; however, as of 2001 he started his own firm of Brunie Associates.

Mr. Brunie has been a frequent speaker and author on how to reach major, albeit infrequent, investment conclusions from interrelating changes in liquidity (Marshallian k) and the valuation of securities. He credits much of his success to the influence of the principles of stock selection put forth by Graham and Dodd and the perspective of Milton Friedman in interpreting and understanding domestic and international financial markets -- particularly, the significance of inflation, and money supply thereto, on financial asset prices.

Mr. Brunie is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a member of the Association of Investment Management and Research and of the New York Society of Security Analysts. In addition he is Chairman Emeritus of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a not-for-profit free-market oriented "think tank," and a member of the international Mont Pelerin Society. (For the latter, he was proposed for membership by two Nobel Laureates.) He is a director of the Zweig Fund, the Zweig Total Return Fund and is also a trustee of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation. He also serves on the board of  The American Spectator and on the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, which was founded by Hudson Senior Adjunct Fellow Betsy McCaughey.