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The Enduring Value of Roger Murray

By Paul Johnson and Paul D. Sonkin

Appealing to new practitioners and seasoned professionals alike, The Enduring Value of Roger Murray sheds light on the evolution of the investment management industry over the last century.

Roger Murray (1911–1998) was a dynamic successor to Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, investment luminaries known for their contributions to security analysis and their disciplined approach to long-term investing. The Enduring Value of Roger Murray (Columbia Business School Publishing, Dec. 2022) offers a compelling account of this leading investment personality of the last century. Authors Paul Johnson and Paul D. Sonkin, investment professionals and educators themselves, chronicle Murray’s life and accomplishments, capturing his professional triumphs, theoretical insights, and lasting legacy.

The book combines a biographical account of Murray’s life—including background on his close-knit, hardworking family through his undergraduate years at Yale—and details his multifaceted career as a financial professional, educator, and economist. The authors highlight Murray’s strong work ethic, educational philosophy, and mentorship, including personal recollections from his students about his teaching and influence.

Murray was the successor to the legendary Benjamin Graham as professor of the securities analysis course at Columbia Business School. There, he mentored generations of students, including Mario Gabelli, BS ’65, Charles Royce, Leon G. Cooperman, and Art Samberg. The Enduring Value of Roger Murray includes the transcripts of four pivotal lectures Murray delivered in 1993, hosted by Gabelli, which became legendary in the investing community. These lectures inspired Bruce Greenwald to ask Murray to co-teach a security analysis course, leading to the resurrection of value investing education at Columbia Business School, which had waned after Murray’s retirement in 1977.

Appealing to new practitioners and seasoned professionals alike, The Enduring Value of Roger Murray sheds light on the evolution of the investment management industry over the last century and pays tribute to a key figure whose insights and contributions made a lasting impact that will endure for decades to come.

About the authors:

Paul Johnson, a founding partner of Nicusa Investment Advisors, is an adjunct professor at the Gabelli School of Business and a fellow to the Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis. Also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, he teaches courses on value investing and security analysis. Johnson is a contributing annotator to The Most Important Thing Illuminated, by Howard Marks; coauthor of the history of value investing in Columbia Business School: A Century of Ideas, a book celebrating the school’s 100-year anniversary; and coauthor of The Gorilla Game: Picking Winners in High Technology.

Paul D. Sonkin was a portfolio manager at GAMCO Investors, Inc., where he comanaged the TETON Westwood Mighty Mites Fund, a value fund that primarily invests in micro-cap equity securities. He was for many years an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and is coauthor of Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond (2001).

Johnson and Sonkin are also coauthors of Pitch the Perfect Investment: The Essential Guide to Winning on Wall Street (2017).

—Claire Curry

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