Financial History Issue 133 (Spring 2020) | Page 41

Roger F. Murray
Continued from page 27
most notably including Gould’s Pumps,
the world’s leading industrial pump manu-
facturer. This was also a great investment.
In fact, members of the Murray family
could be seen wearing Gould’s Pumps caps
when boating on Lake Wentworth. ITT
purchased Gould’s Pumps in 1997.
After his retirement, the value investing
academic program at Columbia was unfor-
tunately suspended. In 1984, Buffett gave
his famous lecture on “The Super Investors
of Graham and Doddsville” at a Columbia
Business School seminar. It was an attempt
to renew interest in value investing by
directly challenging the efficient market
hypothesis, which had become conven-
tional wisdom at the time. In 1988, Murray
co-authored the fifth edition of Graham
and Dodd’s Security Analysis with Sidney
Cottle and Frank E. Block.
The Bridge to the Modern
Era of Value Investing
In 1993, Mario Gabelli and GAMCO
Investors sponsored the Roger F. Murray
Lecture Series. As described in Colum-
bia Business School—A Century of Ideas,
“Gabelli wanted to archive Murray’s
insights, in part to create a living leg-
end. The lectures were delivered at the
Museum of Television and Radio over a
four-week period in January and February
of that year. On an unseasonably warm
but rainy day, the first lecture was stand-
ing room only. Although Murray was 81
at the time, he delivered each 90-minute
lecture without using a single note.”
In the first lecture, Murray defined pri-
vate market value, a concept championed
by Mario Gabelli. “If I say to myself, how
would I define private market value, I
would say it is likely to be intrinsic value
plus, potentially, a control premium...and
there may be patience factor… The great-
est deficiency in the market’s pricing of
corporate America is its lack of patience.
So maybe if we have it private, we have
a better ability to exercise patience. But
there is one negative…lack of access to the
public markets.”
One of the attendees at these lec-
tures was Bruce Greenwald, the newly
appointed Heilbrunn Professor of Asset
Management and Finance. In his book,
Value Investing: From Graham to Buf-
fett and Beyond, Greenwald recounts his
experience. “I attended those lectures out
of curiosity. Like generations of investors
who preceded me, I was struck by the
compelling logic of Graham’s approach.
As a consequence, in 1993 I dragooned
Roger Murray into joining me in offer-
ing a revived and revised version of the
value course.” Murray co-taught the value
course with Greenwald before finally retir-
ing. Greenwald carried the academic torch
of value investing to a new generation of
students from 1993 until his retirement
in 2018. He became the personification of
Benjamin Graham and Roger Murray in
the modern era.
In 2013, Mario Gabelli and GAMCO
Investors sponsored a 20th Anniversary
Celebration of the Roger Murray Lectures.
It was fittingly held at the Paley Center for
Media, where the lectures originally took
place. Tano Santos, Greenwald’s co-direc-
tor of the Heilbrunn Center at Columbia
Business School, gave the keynote address.
The Gabelli Center for Global Secu-
rity Analysis at Fordham University was
launched as part of this event. Its mis-
sion is to support and promote security
analysis in the tradition of Graham, Dodd,
Murray and Greenwald.
Roger Murray passed away in 1998, but
his influence is alive and well at Columbia
Business School and Fordham University.
The torch of value investing is still burning
brightly. 
James Russell Kelly is Director of the
Gabelli Center for Global Security Analy-
sis and Senior Lecturer in Finance at
Fordham University.
Sources
American Finance Association. “Past Presi-
dents.” Compiled by Stephen Buser. See:
https://afajof.org/past-presidents.
Greenough, William, 1990. It’s My Retirement
Money—Take Good Care of It: The TIAA-
CREF Story. Pension Research Council Pub-
lications Series. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press. 1990.
Greenwald, Bruce C. N., Judd Kahn, Paul
D. Sonkin, and Michael van Biema. Value
Investing: From Graham to Buffett and
Beyond. Wiley Finance Series. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley. 2001.
Morrow, David J. “Roger Murray 2d, 86, Econo-
mist Who Was an Adviser to Congress.”
Obituary. The New York Times. April 17, 1998.
Murray, Roger F. Economic Aspects of Pen-
sions. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of
Economic Research. 1968.
Murray, Roger F. “The Formative Years: A
Founder Reflects.” Commonfund. 1996.
Murray, Roger F III. Telephone interview.
Wolfeboro, NH. January 16, 2020
New Jersey State Archives, Marriage Index
1901–2016
Orth, Penelope, Roger Murray: Portrait of the
Professor as a Fund Manager, Institutional
Investor Magazine, Fall 1968
Sonkin, Paul D., and Paul Johnson. Pitch the
Perfect Investment: The Essential Guide
to Winning on Wall Street. Wiley Finance
Series. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. 2017.
Tanous, Peter J. “Roger F. Murray.” In Invest-
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World’s Best Money Managers. New York
Institute of Finance. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall. 1997.
Thomas, Brian, ed. Columbia Business School—
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1850–2010, Ancestry.com
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.com
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ray Hopper.” Office of the President. See:
https://president.yale.edu/biography-grace-
murray-hopper.
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