Spencer Ivan Browne, who died in Miami on Thursday, spent more than 20 years in Colorado, shepherding MDC Holdings through the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis and founding Strategic Asset Management.
Browne, who was 55 when he died, grew up in Philadelphia. Upon graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, he earned a law degree from Villanova law school.
From 1974 to 1979, he served as special counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
He came to Denver from Cleveland in 1981 to join the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt & Farber, where he later became a partner.
In 1984, Browne joined David Mandarich and Larry Mizel, co-founders of MDC Holdings, the publicly traded parent company of Richmond Homes. Browne was president of MDC from 1989 to 1996, a trying period for MDC and other businesses involved with savings-and-loan associations. During congressional hearings, Browne testified on MDC’s behalf.
“Bringing the company successfully out the other end of that was probably the crowning achievement of his life,” said Barry Curtiss-Lusher, Browne’s partner at Strategic Asset Management, the firm Browne founded upon leaving MDC.
By the time Browne left MDC, he was No. 8 on Colorado’s Top 10 list of highest- paid executives, thanks to record revenue at MDC, where executives received compensation based in part on the company’s sizable shareholder return.
With Mizel, Browne also created Asset Investors, now American Land Lease Inc., which initially specialized in collateralized mortgage obligations, or CMOs.
When interest rates waned in 1991, leading millions of homeowners to refinance their mortgages, Browne acted swiftly to avoid pernicious losses. He unloaded the CMOs and invested in credit-sensitive, high-yield bonds, a strategy that resulted in a $16.7 million profit in 1996.
Browne spent his own money on a wine cellar that rivaled most local restaurants’ wine collections and at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions, buying antique jewelry for his wife of 27 years, Carmen, upon whom he doted.
He ardently supported the Anti-Defamation League – both Brownes sat on the ADL’s Colorado regional board of directors – and other causes. Browne attributed his philanthropic interests in part to his younger brother, who died in an accident, and to the influence of his father, to whom he he was close.
Browne and his wife moved to Miami about 18 months ago.
No date has been set for a local memorial service.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by his father, Lynn Browne of Batavia, N.Y., and his sister, Hillary Browne of Boulder. The family suggests donations to the Spencer I. Browne Memorial Scholarship Fund at the University of Pennsylvania, 632 Franklin Building, 3451 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
