Randall Duncan "Randy" Smith (born 1942) is an American hedge fund manager, and the founder and chief of investments of Alden Global Capital. Smith is known as a pioneer of vulture capitalism, the purchase and dismantling of distressed firms.^[1]

Smith was born in 1942.^[2] He earned a bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1965, followed by an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1967.^[3][2]

His younger brother Russ Smith founded the Baltimore City Paper and the Washington City Paper, which he sold for $4 million, and in 1989 founded the New York Press.^[2]

Smith was a partner at Bear Stearns from 1975 to 1996, where he founded the convertible arbitrage department and later focused on investing in distressed assets.^[3][4]

He started his first investment firm at home while still working for Bear Stearns, with $20,000 he and his wife^{[clarification needed]} won in the late 1960s on Dream House, a television game show.^[2]

The New York Times, in a 1991 article titled "Bottom Fishing with R.D. Smith" reported on conflicts of interest while Smith was at Bear Stearns.^[14]

In 2005, Smith settled claims from a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee associated with an investment in Hawaiian Airlines.^[15]

Writing in The Atlantic, McKay Coppins has criticized Smith and Alden co-founder Heath Freeman, saying "no one has been more mercenary or less interested in pretending to care about their publications’ long-term health."^[1]

He met his first wife Kathryn Smith, when both were Cornell students, and she earned a PhD in political science.^[2] They have a son, Caleb Smith, who was profiled in 2011 in the Dallas-based D Magazine, and a daughter.^[2][5] Kathryn Smith died of ovarian cancer.^[5]

He is married to Barbara Stovall Smith.