Fight At The Investment Club

It started with a fight over Big Macs.
The members of the Golden Years Investment Club rarely disagreed with each other about where to put their money. In fact, most times they left the final decision to Lenn Width, the septuagenarian leader of the group, whose 34-year track record with Golden Years had led Business Week to call him "a dazzling role model" for individual investors in a cover story last May.

But on this crisp October evening in 1992, one of the newest members -- David Korn, a young architect who had joined the 26-member club a year earlier -- decided it was time to dump one of the group's longtime holdings.

"We should sell McDonald's," Korn announced. "It's a stagnant company."

Width was taken aback. He'd been a loyal McDonald's shareholder for years, and had no intention of bailing out now. "It's a growth company," he countered angrily.

"Brinker International and Buffets -- those are growth companies," Korn shot back in a voice that now carried an unmistakable tone of condescension. "They're growing at 20, 30 percent a year."

The other members sat in shocked silence; no one ever talked to Width this way.

"They're too speculative," Width said, his voice rising.

Finally, Korn couldn't take it any longer. "I despise McDonald's," he practically shouted. "The bathrooms are filthy, and the food isn't that great."

This is not the sort of exchange that you normally read about in the press coverage of investment clubs, those glowing paeans to the virtues of togetherness. ("Who Needs Merrill Lynch When You Can Get Maxine and Helen?" said the Chicago Tribune. "Investment Clubs? They're Just Between Friends," raved the Vancouver Sun.) Nor is it something you'd hear them boasting about at the National Association of Investors Corp., an umbrella group for investment clubs. ("If you'd come to one of