Cramer: Retirement Nears
N E W Y O R K, Dec. 4, 2000 -- — No one can believe it, which tells me it is even more right than I thought. Yep, I am getting out of the hedge fund game. I am retiring from Cramer Berkowitz at the end of the year and turning this great firm over to my trusted partner, Jeff Berkowitz.
Rather than have you speculate on the real skinny, I am going to share with you what I am sharing with my partners at my hedge fund.
To Be With Their Daddy
“Dear Partner: “When I started this firm 14 years ago, I always dreamed that we would build a team that could last far after I decided I no longer wanted to run money. We now have that team and it is time for me to step aside and let the younger, hungrier players, especially my terrific partner for the last decade, Jeff Berkowitz, take over.
“It’s been almost 20 years since I started running managing money for individuals, and I have regarded it as a terrific daily challenge that has consumed about as much of me as I think I can allow it before I become too tired and spent to do other things.
“But after a great run, I long for other challenges that, at this point in my life, seem more compelling to me: family, my writing and, yes, for those of who know me best, fun. Plain unadulterated fun. Fun with my wife. Fun with my beautiful daughters, before they are too old to want to be with their daddy.
‘So Manic and Miserable’
“Recently a respected Washington Post writer, Howard Kurtz, penned a book, called The Fortune Tellers, about me and a few other people who have become high-profile in this new world of finance. It was a sympathetic portrait of someone who would stop at nothing legal to make money for his partners, who bled for performance and for the highest return with the least risk. It presented me as I truly have become. “A book critic reviewed it in the San Francisco Examiner and noted the following: ‘In his office by 5 a.m. each day, Cramer gives workaholism a bad name. It’s amazing that a man so wealthy and successful can still be so manic and miserable.’ “I cut it out and taped it right next to a Post-It drawing my wife, Karen, penned of a tombstone which says, ‘He Worked Hard.’ I have looked at these two squibs of paper every day for months and have marveled at their poignancy for my situation. “But what would I do? “How could I leave?
“Then, near year-end, it hit me. I knew how I could leave: on top, with the best possible performance we could deliver for our partners. It has been my lifelong ambition to deliver a great year when the indices were so horrid. It means the world to me.
In Good Hands
“And I can do it now, and know that I will be leaving us — because I intend to keep my money in the fund and remain a limited partner — with a fantastic team and a great legacy. What greater way to express my confidence in Jeff than to leave my money in with the fund. I would recommend you do the same. “Jeff has worked with me for eight years and his name has been on the door since January 1997. He and I have hand-picked a fantastic group, including Todd Harrison, our head trader, with 11 years in the business, and Matt Jacobs, our research director, who may be the smartest young talent I have ever seen. “These guys are just the tops in the business. It would not surprise me that, no matter how hard the market, this team continues to generate super returns.”
James J. Cramer is manager of a hedge fund and co-founder of TheStreet.com. At time of publication, his fund was long TheStreet.com. Cramer was also personally long TheStreet.com. His fund often buys and sells securities that are the subject of his columns, both before and after the columns are published, and the positions that his fund takes may change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks.