A prominent money market fund industry watcher and fundster entrepreneur died last month.

Bill Donoghue W.E. Donoghue & Co. Founder

On January 16 Seattle-based Bill Donoghue, whom Crane Data calls "the original money fund 'guru,'" passed away in Healdsburg, California at the age of 75. Donoghue founded his own mutual fund shop, Norwood, Massachusetts-based W.E. Donoghue & Co. [profile] (WEDCO), in 1986. He was also a key money fund industry watcher and voice as money market mutual funds rose to prominence amid the high interest rates of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Peter Crane of Crane Data says that Donoghue bought the Money Fund Report newsletter from Dan Butler in 1975. Donoghue edited Donoghue's MoneyLetter and founded Donoghue's Money Fund Average, and authored a series of books, starting with William E. Donoghue's Complete Money Market Guide in 1981. Donoghue sold his businesses to what is now iMoneyNet in the late 1980s and focused on his eponymous fund firm.

Donoghue retired last year and sold his 60-percent stake in WEDCO to Naples, Florida-based Minella Capital Management. WEDCO offers the Power Funds and separately managed accounts and specializes in "defensive tactical asset management."

Donoghue grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania and later earned degrees from Lehigh University and Temple University, and he served in the Delaware Air National Guard. He was a wine, blues, and jazz aficionado. He maintained the www.SonnyBoy.com fansite about Alex "Rice" Miller, who is better known as "Sonny Boy Williamson II" and authored Hiding in the Spotlight: The Untold Story of Sonny Boy Williamson II, a forthcoming biography of the blues singer songwriter.

Donoghue has three ex-wives, and he is survived by a daughter, a son, a brother, two nieces, and many cousins. Visitation is scheduled for Friday, March 3 at Bonney Watson Funeral Home in Seattle, Washington. The funeral is scheduled for Saturday, March 4 in the Chapel of Bonney Watson, followed by interment at Mount Pleasant Cemetery on Queene Anne Hill. In lieu of flowers, the family is directing contributions to the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretative Center in Indianola, Mississippi, to the "William E. Donoghue Fund in memory of the great Blues Musician Sonny Boy Williamson II, aka Alex Rice Miller." 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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