2023 Hall of Fame
2023 HALL OF FAME
FIASI's 25TH Annual Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony & Dinner
Union League Club | 38 E 37th St, New York, NY 10016
Robert Michele, CFA
CIO & Head of Global Fixed Income, Currency & Commodities J.P. Morgan Asset Management
Steven Berkley
Former Chief Executive Officer Bloomberg Index Services Limited
Barbara Novick
Co-Founder and Former Vice Chair BlackRock
Robin Wigglesworth
Editor of Alphaville, Financial Time's Blog
Tuesday, September 26, 2023 | 6:00 – 9:30 PM
Union League Club | 38 E 37th St, New York, NY 10016
MARK HOWARD'S SPEECH
Welcome to the 25th annual Fixed Income Hall of Fame Ceremony, hosted by the Fixed Income Analysts Society. My name is Mark Howard and it’s my privilege to serve as the Chair of this year’s event. Shortly, we will dig into our meals and continue the conversations for about 45 minutes. At that time, I will come back on stage to kick off the formal ceremony which will include 3 wonderful speeches by our distinguished honorees and an introduction by our Master of Ceremonies, Robin Wigglesworth. The event will conclude with some brief comments by FIASI’s President, Monica Aggarwal of Fitch Ratings and her presentation of a special recognition award to a long-time contributor to FIASIs success.
And before we turn back to dinner, I want to give shout-outs to 4 very special members of our Hall of Fame who are celebrating anniversaries this year. As a coincidence, Dan Fuss of Loomis Sayles is being feted by his friends and colleagues today in Boston as they celebrate his 90th birthday!!
This year is the 10th anniversary of the inductions for Jim Grant and Rick Rieder. Rick is travelling and sends his very best wishes. Jim accelerated his publishing deadline so that he could join tonight – Jim do you mind raising your hand for everyone?
ROBIN WIGGLESWORTH'S SPEECH
First of all, I want to say what an absolute honour it is to be invited here by Mark and the rest of the Fixed Income Analysts Society. I gather that this is the first time FIASI has had an external master of ceremonies for the hall of fame dinner, which makes it even more special.
But what clinched me to dump three kids on my patient wife in Oslo and fly out here was our inductees this evening. I’ve known Bob and Barbara for a while now, and I’ve been a big fan of Steve’s work for ages. It is truly a privilege to be part of their induction tonight.
I also feel that despite being a journalist, that I am a little among friends here today. You see, fixed income is my first love as a financial journalist, and as Cat Stevens sang, the first cut is the deepest.
I know equities gets most of the mainstream love and attention, but everyone in this room knows that fixed income is where it’s at. Bonds are cool.
As a bond person once told me, we should pity equities people, who will never know the clean, pure joy of just getting repaid in full and on time.
In fact I’m writing an entire book on the awesome history of the bond market, which is why I suspect Mark invited me in the first place. I’m glad to say that we have a very special guest with us in the room because of research I’m doing for that book. Downstairs, you might have spotted something pretty special: the world’s oldest living bond. It’s almost as old as Bob.
STEVE BERKLEY'S SPEECH
Thank you Robin for that wonderful introduction. It’s one my father wouldhave enjoyed and my mother would believe. I would like to firstcongratulate my fellow inductees Barbara and Bob and offer a hardy thankyou to the FIASI board and Hall of Fame members, my family, friends,colleagues and all those here in attendance this evening. It is truly an honorto be standing here before you.
Many of you are aware of my travel fetish and have listened to my stories,REPEATEDLY, over the years. There is one more to add to that collection. So I was in Westminster Abbey moseying about, reading the names ofcelebrated and worthy individuals buried in the hallowed floor of the Abbey. These included the likes of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Rudyard Kipling,Henry VIII and Philip Clark. Who is Philip Clark you ask? He was theplumber who faithfully served the Abbey for decades. THEY INCLUDEDTHE PLUMBER WITH REAL HEROES! So as I prepared for the eventthis evening, I reviewed the list of those in the FIASI Hall of Fame. They included, among others, Mike Bloomberg, Larry Fink, Bill Gross and JackBogle. So then it all hit me – I AM THE FIASI PLUMBER!
But all kidding aside, I have been blessed to have spent most of my careerworking with amazing people developing systems and most notably fixed income indices. When I joined Shearson Lehman Brothers in 1986 afterseveral stints at Grumman Aerospace, Sperry Systems and Citibank, I was assigned to the nascent index team. I knew nothing about benchmarks butquickly became involved with the effort to launch the US Aggregate Index. The leading indices at the time were the Salomon Brothers BIG and the Shearson Lehman Government Corporate but investors had been using US Mortgages to outperform those benchmarks. So working with pension consultants, we built a more representative benchmark which was quickly adopted by investors – the US Agg.
ROBERT MICHELE'S SPEECH
I’m not supposed to be here
- But not why you think
- I intended to go through med school after Penn undergrad and emerge a Dr
- This is a great source of amusement to my wife. I faint at the sight of blood. and have no bedside manner (a good trait for a bond investor!?) !
- While I didn’t arrive with the traditional business course background. I did come equipped with the math and sciences and no doubt the medical profession is quite relieved at their near miss!
To be here tonight is genuinely an honor
- I’d like to thank FIASI and Mark Howard for their wonderful lack of judgment in letting me slip in this year with two incredibly accomplished and deserving honorees: Steve and Barbara
- And what a treasure to be included in the company of so many true fixed income pioneers I have long admired: Marty Leibowitz whose book, Inside the Yield Curve, was my bible for so many years
- And, of course, JP Morgan’s own Joyce Chang, who taught so many of us how to look at the emerging markets and not to be afraid of their debt
Shortly after Mark Howard had called me with the news, I ran into Joyce
- She told me her induction was deeply personal…I knew immediately what she meant
- At some point in our careers, we realize that investing isn’t a game, a job or a career path…its serious business and a privilege to have input on how someone else’s money is invested
- But it can also be a burden when markets don’t go your way and it is always all-consuming
- Which my long suffering family knows all too well…..
- The sullen mood swings in challenging markets, the eternal checking the markets at dinner/holidays/vacations, the weeks of travel and of course the news that we were moving to London for a great opportunity – which our 9 and 10 yr old sons didn’t view in the same light
- So an enormous thank-you to my wife and our sons
- And a not so small footnote as we are in the company of FIASI, I did meet my wife of 35 yrs, Katherine, in our CFA level 1 study group
BARBARA G. NOVICK'S SPEECH
Thank you to the FIASI Board for inviting me to join the Fixed Income Hall of Fame.
When I looked at the previous inductees, I saw people that inspired me early in my career: Dexter Senft, Larry Fink, and Lew Ranieri, and of course, Marty Leibowitz to name just a few. I’m excited to join this illustrious group.
Please join me in offering a hearty congratulations to Bob Michelle and Steve Berkeley, this year’s co-inductees.
Tonight, I’d like to share a few highlights from my career as well as lessons that you can take away.
I graduated from Cornell with a BA in Economics. At the time, I assumed I would return to school for a business degree or a joint MBA/JD. Boy was I wrong.
My first job was at Morgan Stanley in a computer ‘boot camp’. Imagine me as a computer programmer. While that was not my destiny, it is where I learned bond math.
Morgan Stanley was undergoing a transformation from a small boutique to a full service investment bank. Lots of change; lots of opportunities.