Chris Mayer: The Best Investors of All Time

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Who are the best investors of all time?

You probably thought of Warren Buffett or Peter Lynch or John Templeton or other renowned money managers, past and present.

But did you think of the Walton family, the Rales brothers or Jeff Bezos? 

Yes, we tend to think of them as entrepreneurs. But they do own stakes in public companies just like any of those other investors. In this case, the public companies are Walmart, Danaher and Amazon, respectively. The returns on these stocks have been, well... let’s just say they would be the envy of nearly any traditional money manager you care to name.

Let’s think about Sam Walton for a moment. He opened the first Walmart store in 1962 at the age of 44 (then called Wal-Mart). In 1970, he took the company public. The IPO generated nearly $5 million, which doesn’t sound like much these days. The Walton family retained ~60%, which put the overall equity at about $13 million. The Walton family stake was worth about $8 million.