Jack Salzman wanted to be a portfolio manager when he graduated from New York’s Pace University in 1968, but jobs on the buy side were hard to come by at the time. Instead, he became an analyst with Standard & Poor’s. “And I obviously stuck with it,” he says. “I loved being an analyst. To me it was the most extraordinary experience of my life.”
By 1975, Salzman was with Shields Model Roland and making an impression on investors. “I was opinionated,” the 66-year-old acknowledges. “The vast majority of clients and the vast majority of company managements knew where I stood. If I had tried to be subtle, I would probably have stumbled over myself. No one ever taught me subtle.”
Bluntness didn’t harm his career. Salzman debuted on the All-America Research Team that year as a runner-up in Household Products — the first of his 34 appearances in the rankings, including 20 visits to the top spot in Cosmetics, Household Products or, from 1985 through 1989, both. (In 2000 we merged the sectors to create today’s Cosmetics, Household & Personal Care Products.)
Salzman moved to Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. in 1977 and then to Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 1985. He has a special fondness for his stint with the latter. “It was a truly wonderful period,” he says of his Goldman days.
In 1998, after three decades on the sell side, he finally fulfilled his dream of being a money manager by launching his own firm, Salzman Capital Management. No less outspoken today, Salzman laments prohibitions on analysts’ owning the stocks they tell clients to buy. “It should be the law that analysts own their recommendations,” he says.
