Stevin Ray Hoover (born October 10, 1948) is an American businessman, writer, philosopher, and former investment manager who wrote a Young Adult/Middle Grade novel entitled THE HANNAH CHRONICLES that was published in 2010. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Hoover, in 1989, founded Hoover Capital Management, Inc., a well respected investment management firm where he was CEO from 1989 to 2002. He also founded and ran the Chestnut Fund LP, a hedge fund.
Hoover was a highly regarded Boston-based investment manager whose reputation [1] as a registered investment advisor was enhanced by the respect of other prominent investment advisors such as Peter Lynch. Hoover had a very respected and successful 26-year history in the investment business.
Stevin Hoover was born in 1948 in Franklin, Pennsylvania, (population 7,300) located in Venango County in northwestern Pennsylvania. He lived in Franklin until 1966, when he left for the Millard School, a preparatory school located in Bandon, Oregon. The Millard School was a preparatory school for the service academies, in particular the United States Air Force Academy.
Hoover attended Franklin Area High School in Franklin, Pennsylvania, and the Millard School in Bandon, Oregon, which prepared him for entering the United States Air Force Academy, where he was a cadet from 1967 to 1969. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his BA in 1972 with concentrations in the classics and philosophy. [2] Between 1973 and 1975, he studied German philosophy and language at the Universitaet Hamburg. He attended Boston University School of Management, where he received his MBA in 1990.
Hoover practiced an investment approach best described as "concentrated value." [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
In 1998, Hoover married a Mississippi native and they have one daughter, Hannah Kathleen HOOVER, who was born on December 2, 1999.
Before launching Hoover Capital Management in 1989, Hoover spent four years as a stockbroker in Germany, where he was a registered representative in the Hamburg, Germany, office of United States stock brokerage company Bache & Co., known in Germany as Bache Halsey Stuart Shields Model & Roland GmbH. This was followed by 11 years as a registered representative in Bache's Boston office. Bache & Co was acquired by Prudential Financial in 1981 and became known as Prudential Bache Securities, Inc., later renamed simply Prudential Securities, Inc. Wachovia acquired Prudential Securities, Inc., in 2003.
Hoover hired John Christopher ("Chris") Wade in HCM's Kansas City, Missouri, office to provide support services, especially portfolio management software support. Wade had previously been employed by Advent Software Inc. of San Francisco, California, and claimed knowledge of the Advent Portfolio Management systems. As such, Wade was tasked with maintaining portfolio performance and related data at Hoover Capital.
In September 2001, Wade questioned whether Hoover might have been making transfers between entities controlled by Hoover and unrelated outside third parties that were possibly not authorized. Taking documents that might have supported his tenuous case, Wade resigned and became a self-styled whistleblower. Attorneys representing Hoover and HCM defended the case and vigorously denied any wrongdoing, and Wade was viewed as a disgruntled "snitch" who was hoping to help manufacture a case for a whistleblower reward.
The legal case against Hoover, HCM, and Chestnut Fund LP remains the subject of ongoing debate, with many believing the case never should have been brought, as there were no clear improprieties. One analysis of Hoover's activities was made in 2004 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission while attempting to enact certain regulatory changes to rules governing private investment vehicles. [10]
Between May 2008 and May 2010, Hoover divided his time between Ponte Vedra Beach , Florida, Mobile, Alabama, and Mississippi. Ponte Vedra Beach is best known as being the location of the Players Golf Championship at Sawgrass , the annual U.S. golf tournament with the largest purse on the Professional Golfers Association tour. In October 2007 Hoover began regular postings to a blog in his name , and the blog was active as of the summer of 2012. He practices Bikram Hot Yoga.
Long-Term Capital Management L.P. (LTCM) was a highly leveraged hedge fund. In 1998, it received a $3.6 billion bailout from a group of 14 banks, in a deal brokered and put together by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Myron Samuel Scholes is a Canadian–American financial economist. Scholes is the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, and co-originator of the Black–Scholes options pricing model. Scholes is currently the Chief Investment Strategist at Janus Henderson. Previously he served as the chairman of Platinum Grove Asset Management and on the Dimensional Fund Advisors board of directors, American Century Mutual Fund board of directors, chairman of the Board of Economic Advisers of Stamos Capital Partners, and the Cutwater Advisory Board. He was a principal and limited partner at Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), a highly leveraged hedge fund that collapsed in 1998, and a managing director at Salomon Brothers. Other positions Scholes held include the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, director of the Center for Research in Security Prices, and professor of finance at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Scholes earned his PhD at the University of Chicago.
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Fidelity Investments, formerly known as Fidelity Management & Research (FMR), is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1946, the company is one of the largest asset managers in the world, with $5.4 trillion in assets under management, and $14.1 trillion in assets under administration, as of June 2024, Fidelity Investments operates a brokerage firm, manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance.
Peter Lynch is an American investor, mutual fund manager, author and philanthropist. As the manager of the Magellan Fund at Fidelity Investments between 1977 and 1990, Lynch averaged a 29.2% annual return, consistently more than double the S&P 500 stock market index and making it the best-performing mutual fund in the world. During his 13-year tenure, assets under management increased from US$18 million to $14 billion.
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Bache & Company was a securities firm that provided stock brokerage and investment banking services. The firm, which was founded in 1879, was based in New York, New York.
Paul V. Scura was the former executive vice president and head of the investment bank of Prudential Securities, a subsidiary of Prudential Financial, from 1986 to 2000. He was responsible for the firm's efforts in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and reorganization, private finance, high-yield finance and all international and US investment banking. Scura also sat on the business review committee and was a member of the firm's operating council. He was a voting member of the investment committee of four separate private equity funds and Prudential Securities merchant banking fund, Prudential-Bache Interfunding. In February 1998, he joint ventured with the former EMI/Capitol Music chairman Charles Koppelman for musicians to cash in on music royalties.
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