Bright Banc Savings

HR “Bum” Bright was a local Dallas businessman who, at the heighth of his career, owned a bank, an oil company and the Dallas Cowboys. By 1990, he was one of the richest men in the state of Texas. Then the oil crunch hit, the real estate market crumbled, savings and loans needed to be rescued by the government and the Dallas Cowboys experienced a lull with the firing of legendary coach Tom Landry.

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Fidelity Investments

By winter of 1994, Fidelity Investments offered 2 of the most consistently high yielding investment options available, the “Spartan” mutual fund and the “Magellan” mutual fund. After years of repeated high performance, Fidelity finally reported not only a loss, but a dip into the negative, much to the chagrin of investors. As it turned out, the loss was actually a misinterpretation of the data and though the yield was not as high as investors had been accustomed to in years past, it did not show such a negative yield.

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Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention

Originally formed to aid retired Baptist Ministers with their pensions, the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention grew to a net worth of around $3 billion by the early 1980s with $3 million in annual growth. They were second only to the Methodist Pension Board in Chicago in size among not for profit religious pension companies at the time.

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