General Investing >> Money Manager Interviews >> July 21, 1997
BERNARD B. KLAWANS was born on March 19, 1921 and is in excellent
health. His employment history includes working as a Flight Research
Engineer at NASA from 1942 to 1956. He transferred to the Martin Co.
where he acted as a Flight Research Manager until 1960. He then went to
the General Electric Co. where he performed as Manager, Systems
Operations in the Space Division until he retired in 1981. While there,
he founded the Valley Forge Fund, Inc. Mr. Klawans conceived, formed and
has managed the Valley Forge Fund, Inc. (NASDAQ symbol VAFGX), a
federally registered mutual fund, since inception in 1971. He
established and has maintained all schedules, journals and ledgers. In
addition, he designed the computer programs that are used in running the
Fund and updates them as necessary to meet changing requirements. He
instituted self custodianship and accounting procedures to minimize
expenses. He designed all reporting procedures to each shareholder, to
the Board of Directors, to the IRS and to the SEC. In other words, Mr.
Klawans handles all aspects concerning the establishment and running of
a federally registered mutual fund. His activities have been subjected
to exhaustive annual audits by CPA's and periodic audits by the SEC.
Every audit has indicated that the Fund is totally compliant with all
IRS and SEC requirements. There are now 1140 shareholders and $11.3
million in assets. A dividend has been paid in very year since 1977. The
latest was $0.71 in 1996. The average annual return since inception has
been 11% with only one modest down year since 1973. Another reason why
the Fund has been successful is that the expense ratio has not exceeded
1.4% since the Fund's total assets exceeded the million dollar level in
1985. This low expense ratio is attributed to no accounting, transfer,
legal or custodial fees since all these are performed by Mr. Klawans at
no charge. However, his management company does receive a 1% management
fee for investment advice. Profile
Mr. Klawans: The Valley Forge Fund is a growth fund with a beta of about
0.21, which means that it is the most conservative growth fund
