Shad Rowe, Dallas financial titan and standard-bearer for Parkinson’s, dies at 78

Frederick “Shad” Rowe, Dallas’ highly regarded investment manager and standard-bearer in seeking a cure for Parkinson’s disease, died Friday at his home in University Park from cancer-related complications.

The 78-year-old founder and manager of Greenbrier Partners Ltd. suffered with the progressively debilitating disease for 26 years, raising millions of dollars for research and using his body to test leading-edge treatments.

He and his wife, Michele, lived in four different houses on Greenbrier Drive during the span of their 48-year marriage — hence the name of his company.

“Despite the outward physical symptoms, it was very easy to forget that my dad suffered from Parkinson’s disease,” his son Adam Rowe said. “He almost never mentioned it except to support and celebrate research to find a cure. Even in the last years of his life, when the symptoms became more debilitating, Parkinson’s never prevented him from enjoying what he loved most — his work, and the company of friends and family. It never robbed him of his quick wit and buoyant good humor.”

Rowe said his dad delighted in his 10 grandchildren — whom he affectionately named “critters.”

“He would grin and giggle as they crawled all over him. He was a loving and supportive father, and a devoted and adoring husband to my mom. He was a good man in every sense.”

For the love of Shad

In 2007, Rowe and John Neill, co-founder of Telesis Co., launched Great Investors’ Best Ideas (which became known as GIBI and is pronounced gibby) as a way to raise a million bucks for their two favorite charities in an afternoon: the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation.

Rowe sweet-talked star-studded speakers into giving their stock and investments ideas for gratis.

“Shad was known, respected and appreciated by world-class investors all over the country,” Neill said. “The high esteem other investors held in Shad was truly amazing. His record was held in awe by his peers.

“That’s what Shad brought to the party. And it was a party. We all had such fun.”

One of Rowe’s selling points was that you didn’t have to wear a tux to attend the Winspear Opera House event.

Michael J. Fox called Rowe “a model board member, a great friend and a force of nature” in a statement sent to The News on Monday.

“His brilliance in conceiving the Great Investors’ Best Ideas symposium to benefit the foundation resulted in millions of dollars for research,” said the 63-year-old retired actor, who has lived with Parkinson’s for more than half of his life. ”Shad’s generosity in connecting us to his broad and deep network across Texas and the country led to our meeting countless new supporters.

“His profound commitment to philanthropy was an inspiration to me and to everyone who met him. He will be missed, but we’ll be grateful forever.”

During its 12-year run, GIBI raised more than $12 million, said Neill, who runs a two-family investment fund.

It was speed dating for investors who paid $1,000 (mostly tax deductible) to hear 15-minute — timer enforced — tips from a slate of investment gurus, including Dallas’ late billionaire legends T. Boone Pickens and Rusty Rose, New York mega-investor Mario Gabelli and hedge-fund manager David Einhorn.

In 2016, Susan Byrne Montgomery, founder of Dallas-based Westwood Holdings Group Inc., suggested that investors take note of a boring, 30-buck stock, Apple Inc., because it paid healthy dividends.

That same year, Dallas billionaire Andy Beal, CEO of Beal Financial Corp., urged the audience to ditch traditional forms investments that he correctly predicted were due their overpriced comeuppance.

Beal, one of the best-known whales in the realm of poker, also participated in a high-stakes, winner-take-all Texas Hold’em match hosted by GIBI with the proceeds going to the players’ favorite charities.

Beal took it all — $150,000 — and then graciously turned it over to GIBI, Neill said.

From his earliest days, Rowe played golf at Brook Hollow Golf Club Country. “He was out there sinking putts until the very end,” Adam Rowe said.

Rowe said his father ironically thanked his health nemesis for giving him a welcome dose of humility. “He told people, ‘It’s taken away a little of my arrogance and probably made me a nicer person.’ “

Short seller becomes long holder

Rowe was among a chosen few regular outside contributors to Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, considered to be a leading independent investment publication, said Jim Grant, founder and editor.

He got to know Rowe in the late 1980s, when Rowe was a short seller betting heavily on the demise of Texas bank stocks. He invited Grant to Dallas for a look-see of empty office towers.

“There were literally no people to interrupt the line of sight,” Grant said.

His readers who listened made a lot of money.

“We published about a dozen pieces of his over the years,” Grant said. “Invariably they were funny, wise and often profitable for our readers.”

Rowe turned his back on short selling and became a devoted follower of Warren Buffett and a great believer in American exceptionalism. “He was long on the ‘Magnificent 7′ before they got their name,” Grant said, referring to Tesla, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and NVIDIA.

In 2011, Rowe spoke at a Grant’s event at The Dorchester in London. “Shad stood at the front of this elegant room filled with elegant Brits and recited negative headlines about the American stock market. Then he advised the people to pay no attention to them.”

Instead they should invest in Americanization. “That was the patriot. The soon-to-be very rich patriot,” Grant said.

The second was to invest in disruptive, emerging businesses that were going to change their industries, “Shad suggested Apple and Costco — his two all-time favorites.

“Frederick E. ‘Shad’ Rowe with this Texas twang addressing Brits was a great cultural moment as well as very lucrative for the audience.”

A man for others

Gretchen Morgenson, currently senior financial reporter of investigations for NBC News, moderated GIBI from its inception while she was a well-known business columnist for The New York Times.

But their friendship dated to long before that when she was a columnist at Forbes magazine and he was a contributing columnist. “The editor was very demanding, so you had to be special. Shad made that grade,” Morgenson said.

“A lot of people on Wall Street are ‘me firsters,’ ” Morgenson said. “Shad was always a man for others. He was a guy who went out looking for good companies to invest in, but it wasn’t just about what it would accrue to him. It was about how others could be helped.”

One example: Rowe took on corporate governance reform with his Investors for Director Accountability Foundation, which pushed for initiatives that would make boards more responsive to outside, everyday shareholders, she said.

“Shad was a great raconteur who told great Texas stories. He wasn’t deadly serious all the time. He thought you could persuade a lot more people with humor than maybe you could with facts, figures and data,” Morgenson said.

“He was a down-home guy who brought down-home sensibilities to a very lofty role of being a money manager.”

Financial journalist and author Roger Lowenstein said Rowe helped him out for no apparent reason when he was just starting on the investment beat for The Wall Street Journal.

“With other investment professionals you could feel the hot breath of self-interest but not with Shad,” Lowenstein said. “Whether he owned a position or not, his instincts were those of a good reporter. If trouble was amiss he wanted to out it.

“Shad wasn’t one of those news sources who would level the most searing accusations in private and get all squirmy if you wanted to quote them. The public Shad and the private Shad were exactly the same.”

Rowe is survived by his wife Michele, his four children, Frederick E. Rowe IV, Adam Rowe, Madeleine Rowe Riehl and Ginette Rowe Beecherl, 10 grandchildren, and his sister Marian “Nini” Lion.

Funeral services will be held 10 a.m. Monday, Nov. 4, at at Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, 8011 Douglas Avenue in Dallas.