Jeff Auxier offers his clients a 36 year record of performance, a seasoned perspective on every market bump and bubble, a passion for research, and an unprecedented devotion to “eating his own cooking”. That record includes serving as Sr. Portfolio Manager for Smith Barney where he created a business model that demanded higher levels of accountability to investors.  Jeff founded and manages the Auxier Focus Fund.

Jeff began lessons in finance early–at age 11, mowing the lawn of Robert Pamplin Senior the former long-time CEO of Georgia Pacific and recipient of the “World’s Top CEO Award”.

Mr. Pamplin tutored Jeff on living a life of ethics. As Jeff puts it, “Mr. Pamplin always put his shareholders first and believed business should be transparent. He said the language of business is accounting, and that if you can’t speak the language, you can’t make money.”

In 1981, Jeff graduated with honors from the University of Oregon with a degree in Finance and an emphasis on accounting. Immediately, Jeff began calling or personally meeting with some of his investment heroes, long before they became today’s financial rock stars.

Names like Warren Buffett. Not yet known as the Oracle of Omaha, Mr. Buffett graciously took several of Jeff’s calls and offered advice, most notably, “Number one don’t lose your principal and number two, never violate the first rule.” To this day, the cornerstone of the Auxier Focus Fund is respect for the power of compounding.

Jeff began his professional career in 1982, at Foster Marshall-American Express (now Smith Barney) in Portland, Oregon. Jeff connected with “value investing” but found the retail brokerage business a challenging environment in which to encourage investors to buy businesses Wall Street despised.

So in the late 1980’s Jeff helped Smith Barney create the Portfolio Management Advisory Board. Along with Jamie Dimon—now CEO of JP Morgan Chase—Jeff and other executives formed policies aimed at better serving client interests. “We wanted high levels of disclosure, reasonable fees and no broker compensation for trading the portfolio,” says Jeff. Jeff also served as a member of the Chairman’s Council from 1990 to 1996 and Senior Vice President of Investments and Senior Portfolio Management Director.  

In a national competition pitting some of the nation’s top performers against each other, Money magazine named Jeff an “All-Star Broker”, two years in a row*  (1997/1998.)

In 1998, Jeff realized his professional dream. He left Smith Barney to start his own investment advisory, Auxier Asset Management and, in 1999, the Auxier Focus Fund.

From the start, Jeff wanted a fund where the manager is held highly accountable, so he committed to remaining one of the Auxier Focus Fund’s largest shareholders. How many managers invest their entire personal retirement into their own Fund? In Jeff’s case, that’s over 166,000 shares, right on the line with his investors.

Jeff instituted company policy that he will not sell a single share while still manager. In addition, his family’s assets are included in the money management portion of Auxier Asset Management.

Jeff volunteers GIPS® compliant numbers showing performance back to 1989. And members of the Auxier Asset Mgt. Team also have large percentages of their own personal net worth invested in the Auxier Focus Fund.

The small, long-time staff enjoys a “nearly never” meetings policy, instead focusing on aggressive, fundamental research. “Everyone here is focused on performance,” says Jeff. “We’ve all got our own money on the line.”