After four years as Morgan Stanley’s chief investment strategist, Steven Galbraith had had enough of sell-side celebrity. “For whatever reason, it just wasn’t my cup of tea,” says the reigning first-team portfolio strategist on Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team. In January he took shelter from the burdens of travel and the storm of media requests at Maverick Capital, a $7 billion New York hedge fund.
Galbraith won’t just be helping founder Lee Ainslie with his asset allocation; he’ll also be taking on some operational responsibilities, such as meeting with investors and hiring analysts. “You always wonder what it would be like to do rather than say,” he muses. “It’s like the old line, ‘Those who can’t do, teach, and those who can’t teach, teach gym.’ I wanted to see if I could at least teach gym.”
The 41-year-old adds that after a decade ascending the ranks at Morgan Stanley, he’s looking forward to being more entrepreneurial. Although Maverick has performed modestly in recent years -- its long-short equity portfolios were up only 2.5 percent in 2002 and 4.86 percent in 2003 -- Galbraith says: “The track record is so firmly established, it wasn’t exactly a high-risk proposition. I feel like I’m helping to build a company, which is pretty exciting.”
Though he’ll surely remain influential on Wall Street, albeit in a quieter way, Galbraith is already losing ground at home. In his farewell Morgan Stanley investment strategy note in January, Galbraith wrote that in terms of influence within his own family, he had fallen behind his wife, Lucy, and his kids -- Katie, 10, and Harry, 7 -- and that the dog, Morgan, was closing in fast. Now, he concedes: “The dog has surpassed me. I have no illusions about my stature anywhere.”
