In the early 1960s Italian stockbroker Alberto Foglia was given the job of selling a block of shares in the typewriter maker Olivetti. As the stake was so large he worked with a little-known broker in the US called George Soros. The encounter birthed a life-long friendship and one of the hedge fund industry’s most productive partnerships.
Foglia, who has died at the age of 93, is best known for being the longstanding chair of Soros’s Quantum fund, one of the most famous and successful hedge funds of all time. He was also a very early pioneer of hedge fund investing, helping the nascent industry grow in the 1960s and 1970s and attract capital from European investors.
Foglia was born in Milan in 1928, into the heart of the Italian financial world. His father, Antonio, a stockbroker, had made large profits after visiting the US in the early 1930s during the Depression and investing in its stock market near its lows. During the second world war, Antonio helped the Italian resistance, letting its leaders meet in secret in his house. After the war he became president of the Milan Stockbrokers’ Executive Committee.