Investment chief at Putnam to step down

Kevin Cronin, the head of investments at struggling Putnam Investments since 2005, will leave his job at the end of the month, the company said yesterday.

Putnam said Cronin, 47, resigned effective Oct. 1 for personal reasons. In a brief interview, Cronin said he wanted to spend more time with his family and had no specific plans about returning to work.

Investors have been pulling money out of Putnam funds for years due largely to poor investment performance, especially among the company's largest stock mutual funds.

The company got caught up in the money market crisis last week, closing a $12.3 billion money market mutual fund when it was unable to meet a flood of requests from shareholders for their money back.

Cronin was in charge of Putnam's fixed-income operations before he was promoted to the company's top investment job.

Fixed-income funds, managed mostly by a team he assembled, remain one of the company's strongest performers.

New chief executive Robert Reynolds has been reviewing the company's investment products and managers since he arrived on July 1.

Now most of Cronin's money managers will report directly to Reynolds on an interim basis.

Managers running Putnam's funds that invest in large company stocks will report temporarily to David Calabro, a senior portfolio manager and managing director.

"When I joined on July 1 the idea was to take a look at the organization, products, and people and make decisions around that," said Reynolds. "We're in the process of doing that, and we've made great strides. On the equity side, I think we still have work to do."

Reynolds said he had considered Cronin part of Putnam's future and both executives were active in evaluating how investment operations should be changed.

"Kevin's been at it a long time," Reynolds said. "It's been a tough market and Kevin as much as anyone takes what goes on personally. I think it just came time that he needed a break."

Steven Syre can be reached at syre@globe.com.