Guggenheim's Investment Chief Scott Minerd Passes Away at 63

Scott Minerd, the Guggenheim Partners chief investment officer who was widely respected for his expertise in bonds, has died at the age of 63. Minerd was known as one of the top bond investors of his generation, and his death is a loss for the financial community.

Minerd died Wednesday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, after suffering a heart attack during his regular workout, as confirmed by Guggenheim in a statement.

Guggenheim Investments announced that Dina DiLorenzo and David Rone will continue to serve as co-presidents, with Anne Walsh serving as CIO of Guggenheim Partners Investment Management.

The firm said in its statement that Scott's partners at Guggenheim, as well as the many colleagues Scott recruited to Guggenheim, all mourn his loss. Guggenheim's investment professionals, in tribute to Scott, will continue every day to use the processes and procedures Scott helped build to manage Guggenheim's client portfolios.

Minerd, who built up his barrel chest from years of bodybuilding, was a frequent commentator on markets and investments for television. He dealt in bonds, structured securities, currencies and derivatives during his stints at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston in the 1980s and 1990s, making him one of the era’s leaders in fixed income during the market’s four-decade bull run, along with the likes of Bill Gross, Jeffrey Gundlach and Dan Fuss.

In a 2019 Bloomberg interview, Gross - co-founder of Pacific Investment Management Co. - said that he doubted there would be another "bond king." However, he identified Minerd as the most likely candidate for the title, citing his "great long-term perspective" as a key factor.

In a Bloomberg TV interview just a week before his death, Minerd called the Federal Reserve’s forecast of 0.5% growth in 2023 “overly optimistic” and said he expected “another shoe to drop” in crypto after the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange.

Minerd's last Twitter post to his almost 160,000 followers came on Dec. 16, when he observed that the Purchasing Managers Index showed US manufacturing "firmly in recession territory."

Minerd was born to an insurance salesman and grew up on land in southwestern Pennsylvania that his family settled before the Revolutionary War. A year before he was set to graduate high school, he quit to follow a girlfriend to Philadelphia. There, he persuaded the University of Pennsylvania to let him take courses at the Wharton School.

After earning a degree in economics from Penn in 1980, he took classes at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He then worked as an accountant for Price Waterhouse before switching to investing, which paid better. He climbed Wall Street’s ranks for the better part of a decade.

In a conversation in early November, Minerd recounted his early days at Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. He remembered himself as a "mini-Mike Milken," calling C-suite executives to pitch bond deals while in his mid-20s.He spoke fondly of his early days in his career. "It was rough and tumble, a lot of fun. It was the Wild West - you could pick up a telephone and call a company and ask if you could issue a bond for them."

In 1992, Minerd gave Morgan Stanley a big win by trading Swedish bonds after the country raised its interest rate to 500% to defend its currency. This move by Sweden caused many other countries to follow suit, and Minerd was able to take advantage of this trend.

In the following year, he orchestrated a debt restructuring for Italy that helped stave off a bailout by the International Monetary Fund. This was a crucial move that helped Italy avoid a major financial crisis.

He departed from Morgan Stanley in 1994 to go to CSFB where he was in charge of the fixed-income credit trading group.

Minerd walked away from trading in the 1990s, but was lured back by Guggenheim CEO and co-founder Mark Walter, a former client who ran the investment firm Liberty Hampshire. Minerd joined shortly after the firm was formed, and it now has more than $285 billion in assets under management.

"Scott was a key innovator and thought leader who was instrumental in building Guggenheim Investments into the global business it is today," Walter said in the statement. "His vision and leadership will be greatly missed by all."

At his peak, the 300-pound Minerd could bench-press 495 pounds 20 times and even competed in the Super Heavyweight and over-40 divisions at Los Angeles bodybuilding championships. He was driven to clock a two-hour workout five days a week in the window between the time markets close in New York and open in Asia.

At the time, Guggenheim Executive Chairman Alan Schwartz said that if he ever had to say 'no' to Minerd, it would be over the phone. He added that Minerd's heart and brain are both bigger than his body, despite his intimidating appearance.

Minerd's husband, Eloy Mendez, survives him, according to the firm.