Frederick S. Mates

Frederick S. Mates, aka Frederic Mates, founded in August 1967 the Mates Investment Fund, a high-flying mutual fund during the 'Go-Go' 60s that later crashed in the bear market of the early 1970s.{{cite book|last=Brooks|first=John|title=The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street's Bullish 60s|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cEDFRo4Kab0C&pg=PA267|date=21 September 1999|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-471-35755-1|page=267}} Mates ran his fund from an office he dubbed the "kibbutz" and with a young staff he called his "flower children". Mates put most of his fund into a letter stock known as Omega Equities. Mates in determining his funds assets assigned a value to the barely traded Omega of $16 a share, while having purchased the stock at $3.25 a share. Mates got into trouble over this practice{{Citation needed|date=October 2012}} which was routine in the 1960s{{Citation needed|date=October 2012}} and not uncommon even today{{Citation needed|date=October 2012}}, of accounting for letter stocks at a price different from what was paid for it. As a result, when confidence was lost in Mates' mutual fund and investors wanted to cash out{{Citation needed|date=October 2012}}, redemptions had to be suspended for a while, which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission condoned{{Citation needed|date=October 2012}}.

Mates was born in Brooklyn and graduated from Brooklyn College in 1954. According to a New York Times obituary, Mates died in Kansas City on December 25, 1982.{{cite web | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/30/obituaries/frederic-s-mates-50-mutual-fund-executive.html | title=Frederic S. Mates, 50, Mutual Fund Executive | work=The New York Times | date=December 30, 1982 | accessdate=14 August 2014}}