Founder and chairman of Greenhaven Associates and author of "Common Stocks and Common Sense" — a patient, contrarian value investor.
Life story
Edgar Wachenheim III was born in New York City in 1937 to Edgar Wachenheim Jr. and Betty Lewis Wachenheim. Little public information is available about his childhood.
He spent two years at MIT, graduated from Williams College in 1959, worked for a period at IBM, and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1966. He married Sue Wallach in 1962; they have four children.
How they got started
He began as a securities analyst at Goldman Sachs. In 1969 he joined the investment division of paper and forest-products company Central National-Gottesman (CNG) under Arthur Ross, and became its head when Ross retired in 1979.
In 1987 the division was spun off from CNG as Greenhaven Associates, with Wachenheim as CEO. Assets grew from $300 million in 1991 to $1 billion in 1998, $2.7 billion in 2004 and later about $11 billion.
In 2016 he published "Common Stocks and Common Sense", which walks through his investments (second edition 2022).
Investment style
Wachenheim is a contrarian value investor: he looks for companies facing temporary problems that the market has abandoned but that can recover. He targets 15–20% annual returns while putting downside protection first.
He typically buys mature, cyclical companies that are out of favour and trade at low multiples of earnings, cash flow or book value, judging whether earnings can normalise over a full economic cycle. If the thesis still holds, he is willing to add to a position after a sharp price drop.
Best decisions
A 30-year record
According to CNBC (as cited by Wikipedia), Greenhaven averaged about 19% a year before fees from 1988 to 2017 — well ahead of the market over a long period.
From in-house division to $11 billion
Starting as a corporation's in-house investment unit, Greenhaven grew from $300 million in 1991 to roughly $11 billion, driven by client growth and results.
Biggest mistakes
Limited information
Wachenheim discusses unsuccessful investments in his book, but we found no reliable detail on specific examples in the sources we reviewed.
Today
In 2026 Wachenheim turns 89 and, per Wikipedia, remains CEO and chairman of Greenhaven as well as vice chairman of CNG's board. He is an active philanthropist: the Sue & Edgar Wachenheim Foundation held $438 million in 2022, and he has held leadership roles at WNET, the New York Public Library and MoMA.
What to learn from following the portfolio
- Greenhaven is a long-term, high-conviction investor — a new position is often a contrarian bet on a company in a rough patch and can take years to pay off; adding after a price drop signals that conviction is intact.
- Copying such buys requires patience: Wachenheim thinks in terms of a full economic cycle, and the 13F lags by up to 45 days.
- Islamic-finance lens: cyclical value portfolios can hold financials alongside industrial and consumer names — financials and heavily indebted companies usually are not halal. Check each position's halal status on the Portfolio tab.
An introduction based on public sources — not investment advice. Spotted an error? Let us know.