Adam Coughlan died suddenly, of a heart attack, on Sunday, February 16. He was a popular and well-known member of the wholesale/retail funds management community. He was just 48 years old and left behind wife Vicki and 14-year-old daughter Sophie. He will be missed, not only by them but also by the wider industry community. Too young.

Adam most recently, in December, launched a start-up investment company, Cambridge Investment Partners, and was excited by its prospects. It is a placement agency and third-party marketing firm. In the past few years he was head of marketing at Dixon Advisory and before that Ellerston Capital – the Packer family hedge fund company. Adam liked to chance his arm with his career. He liked to chance his arm with his life, too. He played and coached rugby. He was the manager and coach of the Linfield rugby team (on Sydney’s leafy north shore.) He also took Sophie, on whom he doted, to her early morning swimming training sessions many days, for instance.

Mark Thomas, a mutual old friend and a chief executive of and major shareholder in van Eyk Research, at which Adam worked for a time, says that not only was he an important member of the firm’s relationship groups, he was also an important member of the firm’s leadership team. And he was an entrepreneur in the funds management world.

From an industry perspective, Adam sponsored the industry’s first platforms conference, held in the Blue Mountains by the former Investor Info Ltd, when he was a senior sales and marketing executive at Colonial First State. That conference spawned a magazine, ‘Masterfunds Quartlerly’, and has subsequently become an annual event, now owned by Momentum Media.

But that is not how he should be remembered. He should be remembered for being a husband, father and good friend to many people. It also should be noted: he was very good company while having a drink on a Friday afternoon.

– G.B.