The top Canadian fund manager foresees a secular bear market and has profited from the commodities boom, but his firm's newly minted shares have fallen
By Barry Cohen
Eric Sprott, chief executive of Sprott Asset Management, has been called a gold bug and a peak-oil proponent. But the 63-year-old Canadian hedge fund manager goes further, describing himself as a "survivalist," with his predictions of a global bear market, widespread financial meltdown and looming shortages in everything from copper to zinc.
"After talking with Eric about the dire state of the world, you want to down a whiskey and take a Prozac," says Cameron Richards, chief investment officer of Keel Capital Management, one of Sprott's earliest investors.
In the eight years since launching his $6.9 billion firm - which includes $2.75 billion in 5 hedge fund strategies, making it the leading hedge fund manager in Canada - Sprott's dismal predictions have...