Raymond Mason, Who Founded Legg Mason Money Manager, Dies at 88

(Bloomberg) — Raymond “Chip” Mason, who expanded his firm, Legg Mason Inc., through acquisitions over four decades into one of the largest money managers in the US, has died. He was 88.

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Mason died Friday in Naples, Florida, according to a statement from his family, which didn’t provide a cause.

Mason took pride in his firm’s reputation for integrity. “We have an ethic that is very strong,” he told MarketWatch in 2004. “If you talk to anybody here, they’ll laughingly refer to my comments about chalk, because I’m always telling them I don’t want them anywhere near the line.”

The flagship fund, Legg Mason Value Trust, beat the S&P 500 Index for 15 straight years under fund manager Bill Miller. The run ended in 2006.

Mason, a fan of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team, was a civic leader in Baltimore, helping to build new stadiums for the Orioles and the National Football League’s Ravens, and serving as chairman of the board of trustees at Johns Hopkins University. In 2005, the College of William & Mary named its business school the Raymond A. Mason School of Business.

Mason & Lee

Raymond Adams Mason was born on Sept. 28, 1936, in Lynchburg, Virginia, to Raymond Mason and the former Marion Adams. He was 7 when his father died, and he moved with his mother to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

After graduating from William & Mary in 1959, he returned to Lynchburg to work at his uncle’s brokerage firm, Mason & Lee Inc.

“They could’ve been in advertising and I would’ve gone into advertising,” Mason said, according to a 1998 Institutional Investor story.

In 1962, when he was 25, Mason opened his own brokerage, Mason & Co., in Newport News, Virginia, with $200,000 borrowed from local businessmen. The firm grew to six offices with 60 brokers by 1970, when it merged with Legg & Co., a Baltimore firm dating to 1899, whose partners were aging. Legg had been a member of the New York Stock Exchange longer than any other firm in Maryland, the Baltimore Sun reported at the time.

Mason became president of the new firm, which had more than 500 employees and commission volume of about $12 million, according to the Washington Post. In 1973, the firm merged with New York-based Wood, Walker & Co., and in 1981 it combined with Mason & Lee. Mason became chief operating officer of the new company.