A retired star growth PM and fundster enterpreneur died this week.

Foster Friess 1940 - 2021

Foster Friess, co-founder of Friess Associates [profile], passed away yesterday at the age of 81. Friess revealed back in March that he was suffering from myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of bone marrow cancer.

The AP, Fox Business, the Hill, the Huffington Post, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Oil City News, and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle are some of the publications that covered Friess' death.

Foster Stephen Friess was born on April 2, 1940 in Rice Lake Wisconsin. After growing up on a farm, he earned his degree from the University of Wisconsin while enrolling in ROTC. After serving as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Texas in the 1960s, Friess moved to Delaware and entered the investing world by joining Brittingham, Inc.

In 1974, Foster and his wife, Lynn Friess, launched their eponymous asset management firm. Their flagship mutual fund, the Brandywine Fund, debuted in 1985, and it won accolades in the 1990s as a top performer.

Multiboutique AMG bought a majority stake in Friess Associates in 2001, and soon Foster Friess started stepping back from the business. (The Friess family no longer owns a stake in Friess Associates, which employees bought back from AMG in 2013.)

In retirement, Foster Friess gained new prominence for his political activism and donations. In 2010 he backed the launch of the Daily Caller, a conservative news website. In 2011 and 2012, he was a big supporter of the presidential campaign of Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania). And in 2018 Foster Friess himself ran, unsuccessfully, for the Republican nomination for governor of Wyoming, and he launched Foster's Outriders. (He moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 1992.)

Foster Friess was also a prominent philanthropist, with he and Lynn donating more than $500 million over the course of his lifetime to causes like addiction recovery, fresh water access in remote areas of Africa, natural disaster relief around the world, and more. 20 years ago he won the "Humanitarian of the Year Award" at the National Charity Awards Dinner, and he also won the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award. He was also an outspoken born again Christian.

"Foster Friess lived life to the fullest," the Friess Associates team writes. "Unmatched determination drove him to great professional accomplishment. Faith and a passionately generous soul led him to help 'the least of these' virtually everywhere his travels took him."

Since Foster Friess' death yesterday, tributes have also poured in from a host of prominent Republican politicians, including Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Liz Cheney, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Pence, and Santorum himself.

Foster Friess is survived by his wife, Lynnette Friess, and their four children and 15 grandchildren, as well as his brother and sister-in-law.

Services are planned for: Jackson, Wyoming; Rice Lake, Wisconsin; and Scottsdale, Arizona (where Foster Friess reportedly died). 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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