Company History
A Tradition of Success


  • Davis Advisors is an independent money management firm that offers investment advisory services to individual and institutional clients worldwide. The Davis investment discipline is based on a reliable, long-term, value-oriented approach that has proven highly successful for more than 60 years.

  • Our firm traces its roots to legendary Wall Street investor Shelby Cullom Davis, a leading financial advisor to governors and U.S. Presidents. Through careful and sensible investment practices, Mr. Davis compounded an initial investment of $100,000 in the late 1940s into more than $800 million by the early 1990s. †

  • With the aim of offering his father's investment discipline to a greater diversity of investors, Shelby M.C. Davis founded Davis Advisors in 1969. Mr. Davis had already built an auspicious career at The Bank of New York, where he rose to become the head of research, and was named the youngest Vice President in the history of the Bank since Alexander Hamilton.

  • During his tenure as principal Portfolio Manager for Davis Advisors, Shelby M.C. Davis created one of the most distinguished track records of any manager on Wall Street. Leveraging his intimate knowledge of diverse industries, gained through multi-sector research experience at The Bank of New York, Mr. Davis successfully combined his father's "bottom-up" stock selection process with a thematic "top-down" approach.
  • In the early 1990s, Davis Advisors expanded its portfolios to include financial stock, real estate securities and convertible bonds. This expansion was the contribution of Christopher C. Davis and Andrew A. Davis, who have been steeped in the family investment principles from a young age.

  • Christopher Davis joined the firm in 1989 and directs the portfolio management of our firm's Large Cap Value Portfolio with Co-Portfolio Manager, Kenneth C. Feinberg.

  • Andrew Davis, who was previously the head of convertible bond research at PaineWebber, Inc., joined the firm in 1993 and is the principal portfolio manager for our real estate securities and convertible securities portfolios.

  • Today, Davis Advisors manages portfolios across several different asset classes. Our investment discipline has been honed over 60 years and three generations of talented portfolio management. We offer investors a timeless, sensible investment approach that has provided consistent performance through several full-market cycles.*
  • Selected American Shares was founded in 1933, making it one of the oldest mutual funds in America. Selected Special Shares was founded in 1939 and Selected Daily Government Fund followed in 1989. The board of directors selected Davis Advisors to begin managing all three Selected Funds in 1993. Prior to that date, the Funds had been advised by a number of different investment advisors.

* All equity investments involve risk. No investor is guaranteed a profit.
†While Shelby Cullom Davis' success forms the basis of the Davis investment discipline, this was an
extraordinary achievement and other investors may not enjoy the same success.

 














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