Montreal Gazette - Investor Peter Cundill shook up management industry

The celebrated investor Peter Cundill has died, but his influence will continue to be felt in his contributions to the financial world, to philanthropy and to the broader community.

The Montreal native died in London, where he had lived for the past two decades, on Jan. 24. He was 72.

There’s Always Something to Do: The Peter Cundill Investment Approach (McGill Queen’s University Press), completed not long before his death, is set to be released on Feb. 26. The Cundill International Prize in History, established by his foundation in 2008 at his alma mater, McGill University, remains the world’s largest non-fiction historical literature prize.

In his investment philosophy, Cundill was known as an advocate of American economist and investor Benjamin Graham’s value approach, which generally involves buying securities whose shares appear undervalued. Proponents of value investing include Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett; indeed, in 2007 Buffett observed that Cundill had the kind of credentials he was looking for in his search for his company’s next chief investment officer.