Sam Stewart, legendary investor and co-founder of Seven Canyons and Wasatch Global Advisors, dies at age 79
SALT LAKE CITY, November 26, 2021 – Samuel S. Stewart, Jr., co-founder of Seven Canyons Advisors, founder of Wasatch Global Investors and legendary investor, passed away at home on November 23 after recent heart surgery. He was 79 years old.
“Sam will be remembered for an investment career spanning nearly 50 years,” said Spencer Stewart. “He mentored scores of people and delivered outsized investment results for clients over decades. We are grateful for his lasting impact on us all.”
After receiving a PhD from Stanford and teaching at Columbia University, Stewart returned to his home state to teach at the University of Utah. In 1975 he founded Wasatch Advisors from his kitchen table, bucking the trend toward indexing with a belief that the market was not completely efficient and diligent research could identify investments that were mispriced.
In a 2019 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Stewart described those early days at Wasatch. “[Nobel Prize-winning economist] Gene Fama came to the University of Utah and gave a talk about how a stock’s price is its value, and its value is its price. This was right after the ’73-’74 crash, and I went up to him afterward and said, ‘So what you are telling me is that the value of General Motors fell in half in something like the space of 12 months?’ He said yes, and I said I didn’t believe it and you couldn’t convince me. [Fama’s] insistence that the market was perfectly and completely efficient ignited all of the tinder in me.… I had no thought of building a large firm or making lots of money, I just wanted to prove that there are ways to beat the market.”
At Wasatch, Stewart created a team-oriented culture where debate was welcomed and encouraged. He served as CEO of Wasatch until 2009 and, late in his career, embraced the opportunity in 2018 to join Seven Canyons to work with his sons Spencer and Josh Stewart and help build another investment firm.
Current Wasatch Global Investors CEO JB Taylor said of Stewart, “Sam was a monumental mentor for me. He believed in me and gave me opportunities and responsibility long before it was rational to do so. He influenced me in innumerable ways – and I will always miss his laugh, his penchant for playful debate, his passion for stocks/sports/farming/film/art and his consistently positive outlook.”
“We are grateful to have had the chance to work with our father who helped us create Seven Canyons in the twilight of his career,” said Josh Stewart. “He will be deeply missed.”
Stewart is survived by his wife, his 7 children, 2 stepchildren, and 11 grandchildren.
About Seven Canyons Advisors
Seven Canyons Advisors, LLC is a 100% employee-owned investment advisor based in Salt Lake City and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Seven Canyons brings together a small group of highly experienced investment professionals, based on a firm belief that close collaboration within a small organization provides the optimal way to identify the best global investment opportunities and the nimbleness to take advantage of them. Learn more at www.sevencanyonsadvisors.com.
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Seven Canyons Advisors
Eric Moessing, 801-349-2721
eric@scadvs.com