Rex Sinquefield
Index Fund Creator, Philanthropist
“A decade after returning to the state with a fortune he earned managing money in California, 70-year-old Rex Sinquefield has become a powerful presence in Missouri politics.”
-Governing Magazine
Rex Sinquefield is another Missouri rags-to-riches story, although his is extraordinary even among his peers. He grew up in poverty in St. Louis and was placed in a Catholic orphanage at the age of five after his father died. Rex was educated at Bishop DuBourg High School where he graduated in 1962.
Sinquefield first studied to become a priest, but went off to fight in Vietnam. When he returned to America, he shifted gears to study business at St. Louis University. After further study in Chicago, he began to implement his own finance philosophies while working at an investment bank.
In 1973, he pioneered the index fund which changed the financial services industry. A few years later, that fund he developed had more than $10 billion in assets. He left that firm to establish his own investment firm, Dimensional Fund Advisors. That fund skyrocketed his net worth but left him bored after a while.
He left the firm to return to St. Louis where he became active in politics and even helped establish the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis.
