Short answers, pulled from the story.
Howard Stanley Marks, born in 1946, is the co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, the largest investor in distressed securities in the world. He is widely known for his investment memos, which Warren Buffett has described as the first thing he opens when they arrive, and for three books on investing published between 2011 and 2018.
Oaktree Capital Management is a Los Angeles-based investment firm founded in 1995 by Howard Marks, Bruce Karsh, and three other partners after leaving TCW Group. It focuses on high-yield debt, distressed debt, and private equity, and is the largest investor in distressed securities worldwide. In March 2019, Brookfield Asset Management acquired 62% of the firm.
In 2022, Howard Marks had a net worth of $2.2 billion and was ranked No. 1365 on the Forbes list of billionaires. The funds he has led have produced long-term returns, net of fees, of 19% per year.
Marks believes investors should set strategy based on whether they fear losing money more than missing opportunities. He targets average returns in bull markets while minimizing losses in bear markets, because he holds that losses do more damage than equivalent gains provide benefit. He favors a high batting average over home runs and stresses admitting uncertainty rather than treating anything as certain.
Marks published three books: The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor in 2011, The Most Important Thing Illuminated in 2012, and Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side in 2018. He also posts investment essays called memos publicly on the Oaktree website.
In 1992, Marks established the Howard S. Marks Terms Scholarship for undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania. He endowed the Marks Family Writing Center at the same university in 2009. In March 2023, he and his wife Nancy made a $5 million gift to UCLA to endow a faculty chair in women's health research at the David Geffen School of Medicine.