Vice Fund Gets New Chief

Michael Henry, 25, president of Peterson, Goldman & Villani Inc. since February 2004, was named president and treasurer of the $54 million Vice Fund effective September 7, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said, according to a Reuters report. Henry will be paid a nonperformance-based fixed salary and will not receive either a bonus or deferred compensation, the filing said.

The filing also said the departure of Dan Ahrens, who gained a bit of fame from writing a book on investing in vice, was effective the same day. The book “Investing in Vice, The Recession-Proof Portfolio of Booze, Bets, Bombs, and Butts,” had a press run of about 10,000 copies, Ahrens said.

“Strictly for the reason of creating my own firm, I left,” Ahrens, 39, said in a telephone interview from Dallas on Monday with Reuters, adding: “I can’t go into details about all the reasons for my departure.”

Ahrens said he has recently gained SEC approval for an investment advisory firm he plans to start. He will start one or possibly two funds based on his track record with the Vice Fund, which over the past three years had returned an annual 20%, more than three percentage points better than the Standard & Poor’s 500 index (See  ‘Sin Stocks’ Pay Off Handsomely  ).

Performance in September slipped, returning a negative 0.91% for the month, compared to a 1% gain for the S&P 500. Over the third quarter, the fund fell to the 97th percentile ranking, from an 8th percentile ranking for its past 12-month performance, according to Lipper.