Jonathan Bell Lovelace


Jonathan Bell Lovelace was the founder of Capital Group Companies.

Early life

Jonathan Bell Lovelace was born in 1895. He grew up in Brewton, Alabama and attended Auburn University.

Career

Lovelace spent most of the 1920s at a Detroit banking/brokerage firm, developing his investment research techniques and earning impressive results. In 1924, he became a partner in E.E. MacCrone. By 1929, before the stock market crash, he could see no logical relationship between stock market prices and their underlying values, so he sold his interest in the firm, took his investments out of the market and moved to California.
Lovelace founded Capital Research and Management Company in 1931 which was at first a small firm named Lovelace, Dennis and Renfrew.

Personal life

His son, Jon B. Lovelace, Jr., a Hotchkiss School 1944 graduate, served as an executive at Capital Group Companies. In 2006, his son and family were ranked #354 on the Forbes 400 with $1.1 billion in wealth. As of 2019, grandson Rob Lovelace serves as an investment manager for a Capital Group fund.

Death

He died in 1979.