Gerald Tsai

Education Tsai attended St. John's University, Shanghai before moving to the United States in 1947. He attended Wesleyan University for one semester, and graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor's and Master's in Economics.

Early career In 1951, Tsai began as a security analyst at Bache and Company. In 1952, he joined Boston's Fidelity Management and Research, and was named vice president in 1960. In 1958, he became fund manager of the newly formed Fidelity Capital mutual fund.

By 1965, Tsai had sold his Fidelity stock and started the Manhattan Fund which won him widespread attention. When the fund first offered shares, a modest offering of 2.5 million shares quickly ballooned to a total of 27 million, bringing the fund $247 million in capital and representing what was at the time the biggest offering of an investment company.

In 1968, he sold the fund for $27 million in stock to the CNA Financial Corporation, just as the fund's superior results were declining and as the bull market was starting to wane. He remained with Tsai Management, the company he had founded to manage the Manhattan Fund, after the sale. In 1973 Tsai resigned from CNA. He sold his CNA stock and bought a brokerage house, renaming it G. Tsai & Co. The sale was recommended by William Stewart Woodside, the then chairman and chief executive of American Can Co., for Tsai to join the corporate team of American Can Co. According to Woodside, he gave Tsai $500 million to invest. Tsai later gained control of the company. American Can was a container production and food packaging business, and Tsai orchestrated its shift toward the more lucrative financial services sector.

In 1987, Tsai purchased the financial firm Smith Barney for $475 million. By this time, the combined company had changed its name to Primerica to reflect its financial focus and Tsai was chairman and chief executive officer, making him the first Chinese-American to lead a Dow Jones Industrials company.

A year later, Primerica and Commercial Credit Group, headed by Sanford I. Weill were combined in a $1.65 billion deal. With 1.5 million shares, Tsai remained the largest shareholder and was named a director, while Weill ran the company. Tsai received a golden parachute worth an estimated $40 million. In 1997, Tsai sold Delta Life to AmerUs Life Holdings for $185 million.

Personal life Tsai was married four times and had three children, including Christopher Tsai, founder of Tsai Capital.

In 1969, he divorced his first wife, Loretta Young and almost immediately remarried. His first two marriages each lasted 17 years. He divorced his third wife, Nancy Raeburn, in 2006.

In 2006, Tsai was engaged to Sharon Bush, the former wife of businessman Neil Bush (President George W. Bush's brother). The New York Times and CBS News reported that the investor sued Ms. Bush in Manhattan Supreme Court after she refused to return the ring.

Death Tsai died of multiple organ failure in Manhattan, New York City on July 9, 2008 at the age of 79, according to his son, Christopher Tsai.