COVERSTORY
Investor
Adventurer,
Father
By Farhan Shah
Jim Rogers went around
the world twice, made
millions and retired at
the age of 37. Now, he is
in the biggest and wildest
adventure of his life –
fatherhood.
There is a peculiar cycling contraption
on the driveway, at the foot of the stairs
leading up to the door of James Beeland
Rogers, Jr.’s house. It looks like an adult
tricycle, with its three wheels, two pedals
and a pair of handlebars, but the large
wooden basket nailed onto the front, big
enough to fit two young children, is an
intriguing accessory.
“That’s where my two daughters sit when
I cycle them to school and back,” James
Rogers, more widely known as Jim
Rogers, says, confirming my suspicions.
Rogers covers about eight kilometres in
total, picking up his youngest daughter at
around 11 in the morning from Nanyang
Kindergarten and cycling home before
repeating the process at 1.30 pm, when
the hot sun is beating down mercilessly
on his shoulders, to fetch his eldest
daughter from Nanyang Primary School.
It is no mean feat, especially for someone
who is turning 71 this month.
This fatherly dedication and devotion to
his daughters is incredibly admirable.
So, it comes as a surprise when Rogers
reveals that when he was younger, he
never wanted to have children.
“I was always against children. I thought
children were a terrible waste of time,
energy and money. I was never going to
do anything so foolish as to have a child,”
says Rogers, “I can tell you right now I
was completely wrong about that.”
To understand Rogers’s initial disdain
for kids, it is important to go back to the
past and discover the circumstances of
his family life. The eldest of five children,
Rogers grew up without much money but
with a sharp nose for business that could
spot opportunities where others did not.
While other children his age were having
fun at the playground, the then 5-yearold Rogers sold peanuts and picked up
empty bottles left behind by baseball
fans after a game to make money.
Rogers’s meteoric rise to the upper
echelons of the financial world began in
1970 when he joined investment bank
Arnhold and S. Bleichroder, where
he would meet his future business
partner, George Soros. In 1973, the both
of them left the institution and set up
the Quantum Fund together. Within a
decade, the fund gained an astonishing
4200% while the Standard & Poor’s
(S&P) 500 stock market index only
managed to advance by 47%.
But, this story is not about the
considerable amount of wealth he
has amassed nor is it about the two
round-the-world trips he embarked on,
once in 1980 on a motorcycle after his
“retirement” and the second in 1999 with
his partner (whom he would marry at the
turn of the millennium) in a Mercedes
that was customised specially for the
arduous trip.
Instead, it is about how this fearless
adventurer transforms into a teddy bear
around his children, wanting only the
best for them while still preparing them
for the rigours of life. And as I watch
the family of four tease, joke and smile
at each other during the photo shoot
in the family home, I am struck by the
unmistakeable warmth radiating from
Rogers’s eyes as he looks upon his two
sprightly children.
Indeed, this transformation would not
have been possible without the gentle
encouragement of one woman – his wife,
Paige Parker.
“We had just returned from our trip
around the world [in 2002] and my wife
said, ‘Well, let’s have a child.’ I gave it
some thought and to be honest, I was
hesitant,” Rogers shares quietly.
“My Mum had me when she was 23 and
another four sons within a span of six
years. The poor woman had no idea what
she had gotten herself into,” Rogers
reflects, his eyes glazing momentarily at
the memory.
Yet, the idea of having children had
been planted in his mind and began
to germinate until he started thinking,
“Why not? Let’s give it a try.” Age
was also something Rogers took
into consideration. He would be 60 if
everything went according to plan, not
exactly the period of life a man should be
having his first child while his wife would
be 34.
Despite his difficult background, Rogers
worked hard, graduating with a History
degree from Yale University in 1964. Like
all young, ambitious men at that time,
Rogers headed to Wall Street to make a
name for himself and managed to score
a position with Dominick & Dominick, a
renowned financial services insti