William J. Ruane, 79; Investment Manager, Harlem Philanthropist

William J. Ruane, 79, a leading Wall Street investment manager and philanthropist, died Tuesday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City of complications from lung cancer.

His firm’s Sequoia Fund, a mutual fund that has outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 index since its inception in 1970, is so successful that it has been closed to new business since 1982.

Many of the clients of Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb gave the firm their business on the recommendation of Warren Buffett, Ruane’s close friend.

Ruane was a Chicago native and Harvard Business School graduate. In 1992 he adopted a block in Harlem and resolved to make it a better place. He renovated buildings, established health clinics and community service programs and gave every child on the block a scholarship to a nearby Catholic school.