- Billionaire Ken Fisher, head of the money-management giant Fisher Investments which reportedly oversees $112 billion in assets, stunned a San Francisco audience on Tuesday.
- According to Bloomberg, Fisher likened winning money-management clients to "trying to get into a girl's pants."
- Fisher didn't back down, telling Bloomberg: "I have given a lot of talks, a lot of times, in a lot of places and said stuff like this, and never gotten that type of response."
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Ken Fisher, the founder of Fisher Investments, a money management firm that oversees roughly $112 billion, on Tuesday shocked attendees at a conference in San Francisco.
Fisher made a number of what Bloomberg called "off-colour and sexist" remarks, sparking outrage.
His comments included the billionaire saying that winning clients was like "trying to get into a girl's pants."
Bloomberg interviewed Fisher, and reported on Wednesday that he felt he hadn't done anything wrong:
"I have given a lot of talks, a lot of times, in a lot of places, and said stuff like this and never gotten that type of response," he told Bloomberg, adding that "mostly, the audience understands what I am saying."
Bloomberg wrote that Fisher is often asked to speak at conferences, like the one hosted by Tiburon Strategic Advisors on Tuesday.
The reaction was swift: "I was floored," said Rachel Robasciotti, a founder of wealth management firm Robasciotti & Philipson, told Bloomberg. "For me, and some of the women sitting nearby we were kind of in shock. We were like: 'Wait, did that really just happen?'"
Bloomberg also highlighted that Fisher has made spicy comments before. Last year, the news organization said, he spoke at a conference in Dana Point, California.
"The most stupid thing you can do is what every mutual fund firm in the world always did" and that's "brag about performance in a direct-mail piece," Fisher said, according to a tape of the event, heard by Bloomberg.
That's "a little bit like walking into a bar and you are a single guy and want to get laid and walking up to some girl and saying: 'Hey, you want to have sex?' You just turn yourself into a jerk."
He added that if he had done anything differently in his life he answered: "Have more sex."
Bloomberg, in the interview, asked if he had any regrets about what he had said on Tuesday. He replied, "I regret I accepted that speech invitation, because it was kind of a pain in the neck," adding, "I wonder if anybody will be candid at one of these Tiburon events again."
Markets Insider has reached out to Fisher Investments for comment.
