Goldman's 88-Year-Old Broker Worries About Outliving Clients
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. stockbroker Alfred Feld is blunt about the state of his Rolodex. "Everyone in there is pretty much dead," he says, gently placing the rusted metal contraption, circa 1948, back on the corner of his desk.
If nothing else, it took a sense of humor for Mr. Feld to reach a rare milestone on Wall Street -- 70 years at one firm. And now, at 88 years old and showing few signs of slowing, he is worried that he might outlive his remaining 40 or so clients. "I don't plan to retire," he says. "Can we change the topic?"
One of Wall Street's oldest active brokers, Mr. Feld long ago surpassed the previous Goldman record of 56 years at the firm set by former Chairman John Whitehead. Mr. Feld tries to stay fit by working out each Tuesday afternoon with a personal trainer in Goldman's private gym, clad in firm-issued blue shorts and gray shirt.
"I see a lot of out-of-shape people here, and they would have a real hard time keeping up with him," says Sean Begley, the trainer. "The first time I worked out with Al, he complained I didn't do a good enough job working him because he wasn't sore the next day."
Mr. Feld, a widower and divorce, works four days a week, as he has since the age of 76, watching his stocks closely, conferring with clients and lunching in the same seat in the Goldman cafeteria. His reduced schedule gives him time to play golf and bridge and dine most nights with a 79-year-old "lady friend" whom he declines to identify. She is "a real looker," Mr. Feld says. Through a Goldman spokeswoman, he adds, "I am very protective of her, and she's not doing interviews."
He gets up at 6:30 a.m. -- a half-hour later than he used to, but with just enough margin to make the hour-and-a-half train commute from his home in New Jersey and arrive at work before the stock market opens. Remarkably in a weak job market, he has had to fend off attempts by Goldman rivals to hire him away. A few months ago, he says, Citigroup Global Markets Inc. made him an offer. Citigroup declines to comment.
The stocks he favors for clients -- many are the children of his original customers -- are nearly the same as those he once monitored for Walter Sachs, the son of Goldman's co-founder. They include blue chips such as Merck & Co., General Electric Co., Coca-Cola Co. and Kellogg Co. He recently cooled on Sears, Roebuck & Co., which Goldman took public in 1906 and is a former favorite of Mr. Sachs's. Mr. Feld says Sears has lost its edge to competitors such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which he likes. A Sears spokesman says, "There is a lot going on at Sears that we hope the broker would find as a reason to put us back on the recommended list for the second half of his career."
Mr. Feld sat out the Silicon Valley boom and bust. "I never understood tech," he says, shaking his head. He declines to reveal all of his current stock picks, so it's difficult to assess his recent track record. The shares of the dozen or so companies he does mention have had a mixed record over the past year -- but a generally stellar one over the past 50.
Mr. Feld says he has close to $200 million in assets under management. He won't disclose his current pay. What is clear, though, is that he's still in demand. He claims to get two or three job offers a year. Rival firms aren't the only one trying to get their hands on his gold-plated client list. His boss, Josephine Linden, says dozens of Goldman brokers have tried to team up with him over the years, to no avail. He prefers to work alone.
Mr. Feld's two children, both stockbrokers at competing firms, also would like to inherit his clients. His daughter Margie Feld, a broker at Citigroup, says that while her dad always put family first, she accepts the fact he would never allow his clients to leave Goldman. After all, she says, he always refers to the Wall Street firm, which was founded in 1882, as his company. "They are as much his family as we are," she says.
Ms. Feld, 51, says her father passed along his love of Wall Street, though she didn't quite understand it at first. As a first-grader, when asked to explain what he did, she drew a picture of him, selling "socks and bombs." At night, instead of reading her traditional bedtime stories, he would list the clients he talked to that day.
Philip Murphy, co-head of Goldman's investment-management division, says there are no plans to force Mr. Feld into retirement. Indeed, Mr. Murphy says he quite likes the cachet of telling clients he can get advice on market downturns from someone who was actually working on Wall Street during the Great Depression.
Mr. Feld has come a long way from his start at Goldman in 1933. He had reservations about taking a job on Wall Street during those tough times. But he couldn't afford to go to college, so at 18 signed up for a clerk's job that paid $9 a week. In his July 1933 job interview, he says, Goldman partner Ernest Loveman told him: "Things are so bad here there is only one way they can go, and that is up."
As an office boy on the partners' floor at Goldman's lower Manhattan headquarters, Mr. Feld forged relationships with many of the men who over the past century have run the firm. His first job involved heading down to the Goldman trading floor each morning to print out prices of stocks Walter Sachs monitored -- including GE and Sears. He spent six years shuttling between Goldman and night school at New York University. He landed a job in 1936 in Goldman's research department, and got a bump in salary to $25 a week. He then moved up the ranks from junior mining analyst to railroad analyst.
Mr. Feld became a broker in 1948 to "make some money," he says. At the time, he was just one of 10 Goldman staffers catering to individuals. "No one knew us, and we had no clients," he says. So he began cold-calling names on shareholder lists seeking investments of any size. Now, Goldman has nearly 500 brokers, and clients must have a minimum balance of $2 million.
Some remaining clients are bullish on his future. Maurice Weill -- who describes himself as "just 80" and works five days a week running a small construction company in New Jersey -- has sought investment advice from Mr. Feld since the 1950s. He says he likes that Mr. Feld doesn't "dole out hot tips" and that he is even-tempered in his investing approach. The only time he has seen Mr. Feld lose his cool, he says, was during a weekly bridge game a few years back, when the broker yelled at a player because he was inadvertently showing his cards.
Likewise, Mr. Feld plays his client list close to his vest. But the few names he lets slip indicate he still has pull. He says he handles the account of Walter Sachs's widow and was Mr. Loveman's broker until his death in the early 1970s. But Mr. Feld gets antsy when other people handle his Rolodex, whose cards have yellowed with age. "I keep that around mostly for the memories," he says.
华尔街"寿星"股票经纪人愈老弥坚
作为高盛集团(Goldman Sachs Group Inc.)的老牌股票经纪人，阿尔佛雷德．费尔德(Alfred Feld)对他那Rolodex旋转名片架中的客户的情况毫不讳言："这里面的每个人恐怕都活不了多久了。"他一边说，一边轻轻地把这个锈迹斑斑的1948年的老古董放回桌角。
别的不说，费尔德以近乎幽默的方式创下了一个华尔街的纪录──在一个公司从业整整70年。现在，88岁高龄的费尔德几乎未见老态，他担心的是，余下的这40几个客户很可能比自己先走一步。"我没有退休的打算，"他说，"我们换个话题好吗？"
作为华尔街最年长的在职经纪人之一，费尔德很早以前就打破了由高盛前主席约翰．威特海德(John Whitehead)创下的从业56年的纪录。身穿高盛发给员工的蓝短裤和灰上衣，费尔德为了保持健康的体态，每周四下午都与私人教练在公司内部健身房内锻炼。
"我在这里看到很多体型欠佳的人，他们很难跟上费尔德的步伐，"教练贝克雷(Sean Begley)说，"我第一次和费尔德一起锻炼时，他抱怨说我没有尽全力帮他运动，因为第二天他一点儿也不觉得酸痛。"
费尔德离过婚，现在鳏居。从76岁起，他每周上四天班，密切关注他交易的股票，和客户交谈，坐在高盛自助餐厅的同一张位子上吃午饭。工作日程的减少使他有时间打打高尔夫和桥牌，并和一位他不愿透露姓名的79岁的"红颜知己"共进晚餐。她是个"大美人"，费尔德说。他通过高盛一个发言人表示："我很护著她，不想让她接受采访。"
费尔德每天早上6点半起床──比以往晚半个小时，但足以让他坐上从新泽西出发的火车，经过一个半小时后，在股市开市前抵达办公室。虽然目前就业市场疲软，他却不得不频频拒绝高盛竞争对手邀他跳槽的请求，这不禁令人咋舌。他说，几个月前花旗集团全球市场公司(Citigroup Global Markets Inc.)还曾向他暗送秋波。花旗拒绝就此置评。
他为客户──许多都是他最初客户的子孙──挑选的股票，和他曾为高盛创立人之子沃尔特．萨克斯(Walter Sachs)挑选的股票相差无几，其中包括默克制药(Merck & Co.)、通用电气(General Electric Co.)、可口可乐(Coca-Cola Co)以及凯洛格公司(Kellogg Co.)等蓝筹股。最近，他不太看好西尔斯公司(Sears Roebuck & Co.)，这是一家高盛于1906年协助上市的企业，也是萨克斯曾非常青睐的股票。但费尔德认为，西尔斯已经失去了与沃尔玛(Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)等对手竞争的优势。相比之下，他更看好沃尔玛。西尔斯的发言人表示："西尔斯正积极采取一系列行动以改善经营局面，我们希望费尔德先生能够从中发现有利的方面，在他职业生涯的下半生再次将西尔斯列入荐股名单。"
费尔德曾坐观矽谷科技股的沉浮。"我根本不懂科技股，"他摇著头说。费尔德拒绝披露他目前挑选的所有股票，因此很难了解他的关注焦点。过去一年来，他提及的十几只股票表现不一。但反观这些股票过去50年的走势，它们整体来说表现不俗。
费尔德说他管理的资产接近2亿美元，但不愿透露目前的薪酬。有一件事可以肯定－－他仍然是热门人物。费尔德称，自己每年会接到两三个工作邀请。高盛的竞争对手并非唯一想染指他那些黄金客户的人。他的老板林登(Josephine Linden)说，多年来想和费尔德搭夥的高盛经纪人不下几十个，但无一成功。他喜欢一个人干。
费尔德的两个孩子都在竞争对手的公司做股票经纪人，他们也想继承费尔德的客户。女儿麦琪．费尔德(Margie Feld)是花旗的经纪人。她说，虽然父亲总把家庭放在首位，但她明白，他永远不会让客户离开高盛。他一直把这家创建于1882年的老牌华尔街公司视为自己的一部份。"对他来说，高盛和我们一样，都是家庭的成员。" 麦琪说道。
51岁的麦琪说，她继承了父亲对华尔街的爱，虽然她起初并不十分理解。小学一年级时，老师让她解释父亲从事的职业，她画了一幅画，父亲在卖"袜子和炸弹"(socks and bombs，在俚语中指表现差的股票)。每天晚上，费尔德不是给她读儿童故事，而是告诉她今天他都见了哪些客户。
高盛公司投资管理部的负责人默菲(Philip Murphy)说，公司不会要求费尔德退休。事实上，默菲说，当他告诉客户，他能从一个亲身经历过大萧条时期的华尔街经纪人那里得到有关市场低迷的投资建议时，他很喜欢那种特别的感觉。
自1933年加入高盛，费尔德走过了漫长的事业生涯。在当时经济萧条的情况下，他起初对在华尔街工作还有所顾忌。但他没钱上大学，因此在18岁时找到了一个文书工作，每周只有9美元的薪水。他还记得1933年7月参加工作面试时，高盛的合夥人拉弗曼(Ernest Loveman)对他说："目前情况已经糟得不能再糟了，这样下去只有一个发展方向，那就是向上。"
作为一个高盛下曼哈顿区总部合夥人办公室的文员，费尔德与许多后来管理这个公司的人结下了友谊。他第一份工作的一项职责是每天早上去高盛的交易中心打印出沃尔特．萨克斯密切关注的股票的价格──其中包括通用电气和西尔斯公司。他花了六年时间一边工作一边读纽约大学的夜校。1936年，他终于进入高盛的研究部门，周薪也涨到25美元。后来他又从初级矿业分析师晋级为铁路运输业分析师。
1948年，费尔德当上了经纪人。"为了多赚点钱，"他说。当时，他只是高盛专门负责发展个人客户的10个员工之一。"我们谁也不认识，一个客户也没有。"因此，他开始给股东清单上的每个人打电话，寻求任何规模的投资。现在，高盛有近500个经纪人，其客户必须拥有至少200万美元的帐户余额。
一些费尔德的客户仍很看好他的职业前景。莫瑞斯．威尔(Maurice Weill)──自称"刚过80"，在新泽西州经营一家小型建筑公司，每周工作五天──从50年代起就开始向费尔德咨询投资建议。威尔说，他喜欢费尔德"从不乱给建议"的风格，而且很赞赏其平衡的投资方式。他只有一次见到费尔德沉不住气，那是几年前的一个周末，他与朋友们打桥牌，当时费尔德冲著一个牌手嚷嚷，因为那人无意中把牌亮出来了。
同样，费尔德也把自己的客户名单护得很紧。不过无意中说出的几个名字表明，他的客户都是重量级。费尔德说他负责沃特．萨克斯夫人的帐户，同时也是拉弗曼先生的经纪人，直到他于70年代初去世。不过，当有人动他的Rolodex名片架时，他会变得坐立不安。那上面的名片都已泛黄。"我保留这个东西主要是为了回忆。"。
