Morgan Stanley Legend Barton Biggs Dies at Age 79

Barton Biggs, the money manager whose attention to emerging markets during a 30-year career at Morgan Stanley made him one of the first global investment strategists, has died. He was 79.

Bloomberg reports that Biggs died on July 14, Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Gorman said today in a memo to employees obtained by Bloomberg News. Jeanmarie McFadden, a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley, confirmed the contents of the memo. The cause was complications from a bacterial infection, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation who asked not to be named because the matter is private.

Biggs predicted the bull market in U.S. stocks that began in 1982 and warned investors away from Japanese shares in 1989 before they collapsed. He sealed his fame telling investors to sell technology companies as they soared in the late 1990s, a judgment dismissed by the press and other investors until the dot-com bubble burst.

'He was totally independent', John Mack, former Morgan Stanley CEO, said today in a telephone interview. 'He thought out of the box, and he got people to think out of the box. That’s how I’ll remember him, always as someone who was taking a much broader view or something that others had not thought of'.

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Traxis Partners Founder Barton Biggs Dies at Age 79