Thomas Hagan Bailey, founder of Janus Capital and an ardent land conservationist, died peacefully at his home on the Iron Rose Ranch in Carbondale on Aug. 31, according to an obituary provided by his family. He was 88.
Bailey, who grew up in Michigan and Ontario, Canada, established a reputation as a growth-style money manager, demonstrating a knack for using bottom-up research to uncover rapidly growing companies that would outperform. He moved to Denver in 1969, seeking the freedom to invest more independently and aggressively than he could on Wall Street.
He named his firm the Janus Capital Corp. after the Roman god of doors, gateways and beginnings, and launched the Janus Fund. Like the companies he sought out for investment, he favored an entrepreneurial style of management, giving him an edge in a field dominated by stodgy institutions.
The secret to Bailey’s success, however, wasn’t in picking stocks but, rather, in picking talented money managers and training them in the Janus way. Jim Craig, Helen Young Hayes, Tom Marsico, Ron Sachs, Scott Shoelzel, Blaine Rollins, Claire Young and Sandy Rufenacht were some of the portfolio managers he fostered.
The strong team Bailey built generated market-beating returns throughout the 1990s and the money poured in, with assets under management peaking at around $330 billion in March 2020. Bailey, along with his Cherry Creek rival Bill Berger, put Denver on the map for growth-style investing, making the city a must-stop for corporate executives looking to win institutional support.
Janus portfolio managers became celebrities featured in financial magazines and were sought after for interviews on cable business news shows.
Bailey preferred to remain behind the scenes.
“I go to the office every day and we try to do the best thing we can for our 6 or 7 million shareholders. Good long-term performance is a bunch of good short-term performance,” Bailey said in an interview he did as part of a video for his induction into the Colorado Business Hall of Fame in 2001.
Janus, alongside the high-flying growth stocks that many of its funds invested in, saw fortune turn a darker face after the market peaked in March 2000. Bailey sold his 12% stake in Janus Capital in 2001 and 2002 to Stillwell Financial, earning him $1.2 billion. He stayed on as chairman into 2003 and then left 33 years of running Janus behind for a quieter life in the Roaring Fork Valley with his family.
By early 2004, Janus Capital had shrunk to $145 billion in assets. Several high-profile managers, who chafed at a more structured environment under the new owners, departed. Janus eventually became a more diversified fund group with more middle-of-the-road performance. In 2017, it merged with London-based Henderson Global Investors, although it maintains a large presence in Cherry Creek.
Bailey turned his focus to the Iron Rose Ranch and bred and trained competitive cutting horses in Carbondale. He became a competitive rider himself, winning numerous national amateur titles throughout the West, according to his family. He endowed two tenured chairs at Colorado State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
Land preservation represented another passion he focused on later in life. He acquired and preserved 1,600 acres in the Roaring Fork Valley, Crystal Valley and along the West Muddy in Delta County, something his time at Janus provided him with the resources to do.
Forbes magazine estimates Bailey’s net worth this year was at $1.3 billion, ranking him as Colorado’s 10th wealthiest person and the 2,479th wealthiest person in the world. But he derived more satisfaction from the opportunities he created for the employees who worked at Janus, and the wealth he generated for the investors who placed their confidence in the firm, said one former manager.
Bailey, in his later years, was more comfortable fly-fishing or breeding horses than he was attending galas and rubbing elbows with fellow billionaires.
“Tom Bailey will be dearly missed by all who knew him, remembered as a fierce competitor, a cultural evangelist and an enduring steward of the West,” his family said in a statement.
Bailey is survived by his wife Lisa Bernhoft Bailey; his former wife, Jeanne Bailey; their children, Miranda and Ryan; and three grandchildren — Golden Rose and Wilder Bailey Lebovich and Clare Enid Bailey. Tanner Bailey, one of his children, died earlier.
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