Skip to main content

New! You can personalise your feed. Try it now

Advertisement

Advertisement

Veteran investor Marc Faber rejected for Singapore conference keynote speaker role after racist comments

SINGAPORE — Marc Faber won't be a keynote speaker at a wealth conference in Singapore next month after organisers reversed an earlier decision to keep the veteran investor on the programme despite his racist comments in a newsletter.

Dr Marc Faber, publisher of investment newsletter "The Gloom Boom & Doom" speaks at the 16th annual Sohn Investment Conference in New York. Reuters file photo

Dr Marc Faber, publisher of investment newsletter "The Gloom Boom & Doom" speaks at the 16th annual Sohn Investment Conference in New York. Reuters file photo

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

SINGAPORE — Marc Faber won't be a keynote speaker at a wealth conference in Singapore next month after organisers reversed an earlier decision to keep the veteran investor on the programme despite his racist comments in a newsletter.

"To make clear our position, we decided to remove Marc Faber as a speaker," the event's founder, hedge fund manager Mikk Talpsepp, said in an email Friday (Oct 20), adding that the move expresses "the values of our conference." He also said that the event will add a clause to its contracts to make it easier to remove speakers who make "inappropriate or racist" remarks.

Mr Talpsepp defended Mr Faber earlier this week, saying that "we can't ignore his life work, experience and knowledge," and overruling colleagues who wanted to disinvite Mr Faber from the inaugural Wealth Creation Conference.

Mr Faber, the markets prognosticator known as "Dr Doom," has been dismissed from three more company boards after comments in his latest newsletter this week suggested the United States had only prospered because it was settled by white people.

US-based Sunshine Silver Mining Corp, Vietnam Growth Fund managed by Dragon Capital, and Indochina Capital Corporation, had all dismissed him, Mr Faber told Reuters on Friday.

Mr Faber has now been fired from six boards with Canadian fund manager Sprott Inc, NovaGold Resources Inc and Ivanhoe Mines Ltd letting him go on Tuesday after his remarks went viral on social media platform Twitter.

In the October edition of his newsletter, "The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report," in a section discussing capitalism versus socialism, Mr Faber criticised the move to tear down monuments commemorating the US Civil War military leaders of the Confederacy.

"Thank God white people populated America, not the blacks," Mr Faber wrote in his newsletter. "Otherwise, the US would look like Zimbabwe, which it might look like one day anyway, but at least America enjoyed 200 years in the economic and political sun under a white majority."

"I am not a racist," Mr Faber continued, "but the reality - no matter how politically incorrect - needs to be spelt out as well."

Mr Faber, a Swiss investor based in Thailand, who oversees US$300 million (S$408.73 million) in assets, said he has not lost any client money, and still stands by his comments and will keep publishing his newsletter.

"My clients all know me for more than 30 years. They know that to call me a racist is inappropriate," he said.

Mr Faber said he has not seen a significant amount of subscribers cancel their subscriptions to his newsletter as a result of the controversy.

"No, I think most people actually agree with me and certainly defend freedom of expression even if it does not coincide with their views."

On his board dismissals, Mr Faber said: "If saying what I said leads to these consequences, I prefer not to be on these boards. I think the corporate world is now run by compliance people. In this context, I understand their firing me."

Business television networks such as CNBC and Fox Business said they would remove Mr Faber from booking lists for their shows, and a Dow Jones spokesperson on Friday said Mr Faber has not been involved in the Barron's Roundtable since 2015.

Mr Faber said: "I shall continue to write my two reports: The printed Gloom Boom & Doom Report and the website report. If I ever stop writing it won't be because some media outlets call me a racist, but because Mr Mugabe asks me to be his minister of finance."

He was referring to Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe. AGENCIES

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.