Gary Pilgrim (born in Nowata, Oklahoma) is a retired investment manager and a founding partner of Pilgrim, Baxter, Hoyt & Greig, later known as Pilgrim Baxter & Associates. He is best known for his management of the PBHG Growth Fund, one of the most popular growth-style mutual funds of the mid- to late-1990s,and the market-timing scandal associated with that firm's downfall. Investing style Pilgrim is considered an innovator in growth stock investing. Early in his career, he developed an aggressive style which utilized an unusually systematic method of identifying small, rapidly growing companies with the potential to beat quarterly earnings expectations, which would result in sharp upward movement of their stock price. He also exhibited little concern over high P/E ratios, and very little tolerance for companies that missed earnings estimates, resulting in relatively high portfolio turnover. This style, sometimes referred to as "earnings momentum", is characterized by high volatility, with a tendency toward dramatic gains or losses. Pilgrim, Baxter & Associates Pilgrim started work as a loan officer at Philadelphia National Bank in 1967. He soon moved to the trust department, and over the next decade rose to the position of Senior Vice President. It was at PNB that he met Harold Baxter, Stephen Hoyt, and George Greig, with whom he left in 1982 to establish Pilgrim, Baxter, Hoyt & Greig. (With the departures of Hoyt and later Greig, the company was renamed Pilgrim Baxter & Associates.) PBH&G was initially dedicated entirely to managing money for institutional pension funds, and as a result was virtually unknown to the general public. In 1985, they entered the mutual fund market with the PBHG Growth Fund. For its first eight years, the fund went largely undiscovered due to the fact that it was a load fund and was not marketed to the public. Its performance was impressive, however. The fund returned 46.6% in 1993, and rose 225% over the three years ending November 1993. This performance came to light in late 1993 when the fund went no-load and received a torrent of media attention, beginning with the August edition of Money magazine in which it was declared that "few people other than his clients recognize the name of today's hottest fund manager: Gary Pilgrim." At a time when public awareness of mutual funds was rapidly increasing, Pilgrim quickly became one of the industry's most famous names. The fund continued to deliver very