Gabelli, the son of Italian immigrants, was born in The Bronx and went to Fordham Preparatory School, where he graduated in 1961. He has said he read market reports for fun when he was very young and that he bought his first stock when he was 13 years old. Gabelli won a scholarship and graduated from Fordham Universitysumma cum laude in 1965. He received his Master of Business Administrationdegree from Columbia Business School. At Columbia, he was taught by Roger Murray, noted value investing professor and co-author of the Fifth Edition of Security Analysis, The Graham & Dodd Value Investing Bible. Gabelli and his firm later launched the Graham & Dodd, Murray, Greenwald Award for Distinguished Value Investors. This award is presented yearly at his Annual Client Symposium.
Investment career
Loeb, Rhoades & Co.
After graduation, Gabelli accepted a position at Loeb, Rhoades & Co. as a security analyst responsible for coverage of farm equipment, auto parts conglomerates and later media and broadcasting. Gabelli put into practice the theory of value investing he had learned at Columbia. He rated companies not by earnings but cash flow, analyzing a firm in great detail to calculate what he called private-market value: not the share price at which a stock was selling on an exchange, but the price per share someone would be willing to pay in order to buy the whole company.
Gabelli & Co.
In 1976, Gabelli formed Gabelli & Co., an institutional brokerage house, with borrowed funds and money he had accumulated trading his own account. Soon after Gabelli formed Gabelli Investors to manage money for clients.
The Gabelli Mutual Funds
Gabelli's first investment vehicle for the general public, The Gabelli Asset Fund, launched in March 1986 as a no-load fund requiring a minimum of $25,000 to invest. Later, and today, this fund is available for a minimum investment of $1,000 and accepts IRA investments without a minimum. The Asset Fund was later followed on by The Gabelli Equity Trust, a closed-end fund, which, at the time, was the largest equity offering on the NYSE. By the end of 1988, Gabelli's firm had three mutual funds—two run by himself—with combined assets of $650 million. By 1998, Gabelli Asset Management Inc. was managing $16.3 billion. In February 1999, the company went public selling 6 million shares, or about twenty percent of the common stock at $17.50 per share.
In 1997, when ten Gabelli equity funds averaged a return of 31.7 percent, the best of any U.S. mutual fund group, Gabelli was honored by Morningstar, Inc. as the domestic equity fund manager of the year.
Money Manager of the Year (2010)
The Institutional Investor selected Mario Gabelli as 2010 Money Manager of the Year for its second annual U.S. Investment Management Awards. The award selection was based on performance as well as a survey by U.S. institutions.
Wealth & philanthropy
According to Forbes magazine, Gabelli's net worth was $1.4 billion as of April 2020.
In December 2013, the University of Nevada, Reno announced it had received a $1.5 million donation from the Gabelli Foundation to help pay for the construction of the E. L. Wiegand Fitness Center. Gabelli is a member of the Wiegand Foundation's board of trustees.
Columbia Graduate Business School
In July 2013, The Gabelli Foundation pledged $15 million. This gift is earmarked for the construction of Columbia Business School's new Manhattanville campus. The building is scheduled to open in 2018.
Fordham University
Among those recognized at the 2010 Fordham University Founder's Award Dinner were Mario J. Gabelli, CBA '65, and Regina M. Pitaro, FCRH '76, a Fordham trustee and managing director of Gamco Asset Management. In September 2010, Fordham formally announced Gabelli's $25 million gift, the largest ever in the university's history. The gift allowed Fordham, which renamed the undergraduate business college the Gabelli School of Business, to expand student scholarships and faculty chairs, and is crucial to the creation of the Center of Global Investment Analysis which brings together students, faculty and professionals in the financial community to enhance scholarship in the study and understanding of capital markets. In 2014, Mario Gabelli funded the University's ability to initiate the Gabelli Ph.D. Program which will establish a doctoral-level business program at Fordham's Gabelli School of Business.
Boston College
In September 2010, Boston College announced Gabelli's $3 million gift that was used to endow a professorship in finance in the college's Carroll School of Management. An undergraduate dormitory is also named after Gabelli because of a past donation to the school. Previously, Gabelli, who serves on the college's board of trustees, gave $10 million to create the Gabelli Distinguished Presidential Scholars Fund which provides fifteen students with full tuition every year. In 2014, Boston College's Presidential Scholars Program was renamed the Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program as a result of a major gift from the Gabelli Family Foundation. In December 2015, The Gabelli Foundation made a contribution to Boston College to further the Foundation's commitment to the Jesuit philosophy of enhancing the intellectual, spiritual and physical aspects of the whole person.
The Roger Williams University Mario J. Gabelli School of Business was established in 1995, three years after the university conferred an honorary doctor of business degree on Gabelli. In subsequent years, Gabelli has continued to support the school through additional financial pledges.
At the December 2019 meeting of the Local 6 Delegate Assembly, the union bestowed an honorary membership to Mario Gabelli, whose support for the Hotel Trades Council's scholarship fund has allowed for more awards and larger grants. Mr. Gabelli's father, Joseph Gabelli, was a charter member of both Local 6 and the Hotel Trades Council.
Legal Issues
Mancheski v. Gabelli Group Capital Partners - Investor Lawsuit
Frederick J. Mancheski, who was Gabelli's first investor in 1976, and David M. Perlmutter, a former attorney for Gabelli brought a lawsuit alleging that Gabelli had prevented them from selling at fair market value their stake in his company. Settlement for $100M: In March 2006, a judge awarded partial summary judgment in favor of claims that he had unfairly prevented Mancheski from selling his shares. In the ensuing settlement, GGCP distributed assets on a pari passu basis including nearly two million shares of NYSE listed Gamco and approximately $20 million in cash.
US Ex Rel. Taylor v. Gabelli - Wireless Spectrum Auction Fraud
The US Government picked up a complaint filed by Rufus Taylor III that alleges that Gabelli and 38 other entities or individuals that participated in a scheme to use "sham" small-business affiliates to fraudulently buy parts of the U.S. cell-phone spectrum. The alleged scheme operated over the course of eight Federal Communications Commission auctions from 1995 to 2000. In 2001, whistleblower Rufus Taylor III filed a civil lawsuit against several companies owned by Gabelli, alleging fraudulent practices in FCC auctions. The suit had alleged that the Gabelli-backed false "entrepreneurs" included an NBA player, a related party, a former partner of an accounting firm, an aerobics instructor, and even the caretaker of a vacation home in part owned by Gabelli. In those auctions, the government set aside cell phone licenses to be sold to small businesses. Taylor's lawsuit said that Gabelli used more than twelve "sham" startup companies to meet the requirements of a small business applicant in the auctions and acquire the licenses at a small business discount. The whistleblower was an attorney who once worked in the telecommuncations business for LICT's competitor Adelphia which went bankrupt. Settlement for $130M: On July 12th, 2006, Gabelli and affiliates agreed to pay $130 million to settle the lawsuit. Gabelli's money management business, Gamco Investors, was not a party to the lawsuit.
Personal life
Gabelli lives with his second wife, Regina Pitaro. Gabelli and his first wife, Elaine, the mother of his four children, divorced before 1996.
