Christopher H. Browne (1946 – December 13, 2009) was a famous American value investor, and longtime director at the firm

Tweedy, Browne Tweedy, Browne Company LLC is an American investment advisory and fund management firm founded in 1920 and headquartered in Stamford, CT. As of December 2012, it managed approximately 13 billion dollars in separate accounts and four mutual funds. ...

. Browne was often known as one of the best value investors ever.

Biography

Early life

He graduated from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

in 1969 with a B.A. in history.

Career

He started his career at the firm

, co-founded by his father Howard Browne and a favorite brokerage firm among prominent value investors like

Benjamin Graham Benjamin Graham (; Given name, né Grossbaum; May 9, 1894 – September 21, 1976) was a British-born American financial analyst, economist, accountant, investor and professor. He is widely known as the "father of value investing", and wrote two ...

and

Warren Buffett Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American investor and philanthropist who currently serves as the chairman and CEO of the conglomerate holding company Berkshire Hathaway. As a result of his investment success, Buffett is ...

. His success as an investor and shareholder, who held business management accountable, was renowned. For example, both Tweedy, Browne's Value and Global Value Funds outperformed market averages between 1993 and 2009. In 2003, Browne was the first to publicly speak up about irregularities in

Conrad Black Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour (born 25 August 1944), is a Canadian-British writer and former politician, Publishing, newspaper publisher, Investor, financier, and Fraudster, convicted fraudster. Black's father was businessma ...

's management of Hollinger, reporting Black to the

Securities and Exchange Commission The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929. Its primary purpose is to enforce laws against market m ...

. Black was forced out later that year and ultimately convicted of fraud. In 2006 Browne authored a book, ''

The Little Book of Value Investing Christopher H. Browne (1946 – December 13, 2009) was a famous American value investor, and longtime director at the firm Tweedy, Browne. Browne was often known as one of the best value investors ever. Biography Early life He graduated fro ...

'', in order to teach ordinary investors the principles used throughout his career.

Philanthropy

Browne donated $25 million to establish several endowed professorships at the

, where he was a trustee. His donation funded professorships held by

Amy Gutmann Amy Gutmann (; born November 19, 1949) is an American academic and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Germany from 2022 to 2024. She was previously the 8th president of the University of Pennsylvania from 2004 to 2022, th ...

and

Rogers Smith Rogers M. Smith (born September 20, 1953) is an American political scientist and author noted for his research and writing on American constitutional and political development and political thought, with a focus on issues of citizenship and r ...

Death

Upon his 2009 death, Christopher Browne was survived by his partner, architect Andrew S. Gordon, who died on September 7, 2013. Browne bequeathed the bulk of his $250 million estate to Gordon, a much younger man and a relatively new acquaintance. Several of Browne's family and friends accused Gordon of exercising

undue influence Undue influence (UI) is a psychological process by which a person's free will and judgement is supplanted by that of another. It is a legal term and the strict definition varies by jurisdiction. Generally speaking, it is a means by which a person ...

to obtain Browne's estate, and filed a

will contest A will contest, in the law of property, is a formal objection raised against the validity of a will, based on the contention that the will does not reflect the actual intent of the testator (the party who made the will) or that the will is otherwi ...

. In 2013, after a judge upheld the validity of Browne's will, Gordon settled the contest for an undisclosed payment to those who had challenged the will.Dareh Gregorian
Architect Andrew Gordon gets control of late boyfriend Christopher Browne’s $260 million estate
New York Daily News, 2013-02-18

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Browne, Christopher H 1946 births 2009 deaths American financiers American investors American LGBTQ businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American LGBTQ people