Wanted: One value-investing Graham & Dodd enthusiast, primed to manage $22 billion, who promises not to mess up an amazing 30-year record. Such a sign could have been hanging over the door at First Eagle Funds since its portfolio head, Charles de Vaulx, abruptly resigned a year ago. His departure occasioned the unexpected return of the celebrated money manager Jean-Marie Eveillard, who had run the fund for nearly 30 years and who had retired happily to Paris — to pursue, among other activities, daily Sudoku — in 2004.

First Eagle Funds reportedly is close to naming a successor to Mr. de Vaulx, but in the meantime, Mr. Eveillard, who returned to the firm last year for what then was billed as “just a few months,” has agreed to stay on in a consulting capacity beyond 2009 to guarantee a smooth handoff to the new chief executive.

Perhaps his shoes are simply too big to fill. Mr. Eveillard has compiled an outstanding record since he came to New York in 1978 to take over the management of the First Eagle Global Fund. It was, at the time, a tiny mutual fund owned by Société Générale, with $15 million in assets. Today the fund has nearly $22 billion in assets, has earned a four-star rating from Morningstar, has been ranked no. 1 by Lipper in its category for more than 10 years running, and has returned on average more than 15% annually since its inception in 1970. Over the years, it has spawned siblings, including a $9 billion overseas fund, which also have done well.

Mr. Eveillard would be the first to admit he was not always an industry rock star. In one of the worst-timed moves in money management history, Société Générale sold the fund to its present owner, Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, in 2000.

The fund lagged badly during the tech boom. Mr. Eveillard was deeply skeptical about the dot-com mania and did not participate in the huge run-up in tech stocks in the late 1990s. He consequently lost 70% of the global fund’s shareholders between the fall of 1997 and the spring of 2000. Total assets managed by his group fell to less than $2.5 billion from $6 billion.

No sooner had the fund changed hands than Mr. Eveillard’s fortunes turned. He was invested at the time in “old economy” stocks, which held up fairly well as the rest of the market, and especially the “new economy” stocks, collapsed. When his traditional value issues started to lag in 2002, the fund’s positions in gold and foreign stocks kicked in, boosting returns. In both 2001 and 2002, the global fund was up more than 10%, while the MSCI World Equity Index was down more than 16% and 19%, respectively. With most of his competitors drowning in deflated e-stocks, Mr. Eveillard’s performance vaulted the fund into the spotlight, and money started to flow in.

Mr. Eveillard’s conservatism continues to serve him well. At the end of March, the global fund had 5.28% of total assets invested in gold bullion. Adding in related stocks, the fund’s total exposure to gold is 9%. Why?

“Gold is our insurance against extreme outcomes,” Mr. Eveillard says. “We have to worry about the unexpected. Under most circumstances, when equity markets go down, gold rises.”

Spending some of his youth in postwar Germany, with its runaway inflation and consequent currency destruction, may have colored Mr. Eveillard’s view.

“Gold has no real value,” he says. “It does not provide income, but it is a substitute currency. Some people worry about deflation, but I think the risk of that is zero. With Mr. Bernanke at the Fed, deflation can always be avoided.”

A hefty 12% of the fund is invested in cash today. After gold, the next largest holding is Berkshire Hathaway.

“Warren Buffett is the world’s richest man, and I am not,” Mr. Eveillard says, explaining his confidence in the company. Based on various valuation approaches, he thinks Berkshire Hathaway should sell between $125,000 and $130,000, or about where it is now. He bought the stock in 2002 at around $55,000.

Despite his cautionary holdings of cash and gold, Mr. Eveillard is on the lookout for bargains. In fact, the company recently reopened both the First Eagle Global and Overseas funds, which had been “soft-closed” since 2005 and 2004, respectively. “We don’t see that many opportunities today,” he says. “But the markets have been chaotic, and we want to have some cash.” In other words, something could turn up.

What worries Mr. Eveillard today? He is concerned about the economic and political consequences yet to flow from the credit crisis. He is worried, among other things, about the possibility that America will begin to experience the kind of envy and jealousy that creates class warfare in France.

“The middle class has seen income rise modestly, and some improvement in lifestyle because of home equity loans,” he says. “Now home values are heading down, and they look at financial types that made tons of money while they themselves are losing their jobs. In the past, there has been no systemic hostility to rich or successful people in the U.S.”

What really worries Mr. Eveillard, though, is the possibility that he will not retire this next time at the top of his game. Even though his funds have continued to outperform their relative benchmarks, he sounds uncertain.

“We are not as well prepared in our equity portfolio as we were in 2002. Between 2002 and 2007 we didn’t have two markets; everything moved higher. There is more risk in our equity portfolio today,” he says.

“It was pleasant to leave when things were going well. … On January 1, 2005, I took a stroll in Central Park. I felt lighter than air, like a burden had been lifted from my shoulders,” he recalls wistfully.

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