Finance Bigwig at Summit: 'I Want to Talk About What's in Your Pants'

Fisher Investments has now lost nearly $1B after sexist remarks at CEO conference
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 17, 2019 9:50 AM CDT

Cities across the US have entrusted Fisher Investments with shepherding their pension investments, but several have now bailed after the firm's founder made sexist comments at a conference in San Francisco last week. CNBC reports the city of Boston is the latest to drop Fisher, withdrawing nearly $250 million in pension assets, joining Michigan, which has taken back $600 million from the firm, and Philadelphia, which pulled out $54 million. That's nearly $1 billion of the $112 billion the firm oversees. Fidelity Investments, meanwhile, is mulling whether to yank $500 million of its assets, with a spokesman saying the company is "very concerned about the highly inappropriate comments." CNBC reports the world first got wind of Ken Fisher's remarks when Alex Chalekian, an attendee at the Tiburon CEO Summit, tweeted last Wednesday, "I'm truly disgusted."

Chalekian posted a selfie video in which he called Fisher's "fireside chat" a "true debacle," noting Fisher also talked about Jeffrey Epstein and tripping on acid, and that an ex-Fisher employee told him Fisher once said slavery should never have been abolished. CNBC obtained audio from the summit, in which Fisher can be heard advising caution when approaching new clients: "It's like going up to ... a woman in a bar and saying, 'Hey, I want to talk about what's in your pants." The outlet also has a clip from a 2018 conference in which Fisher compared marketing mutual funds to propositioning a woman for sex. Fisher himself emailed Markets Insider, noting that "some of the words and phrases I used ... to make certain points were clearly wrong and I shouldn't have made them. I realize this kind of language has no place in our company or industry. I sincerely apologize." (More sexism stories.)

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