Abigail Johnson sells part of stake
Move may be sign she won't take over at Fidelity
Fidelity Investments said Abigail Johnson, 43, the company's largest shareholder and a leading candidate to succeed her father, chairman and chief executive Edward Johnson III, sold some of her voting stake in the mutual fund firm to family trusts. Fidelity, the world's largest fund manager with $1.1 trillion in assets, did not disclose how much of her 24.5 percent stake was sold. The change didn't reduce the Johnson family's 49 percent ownership of the Boston-based company, spokeswoman Anne Crowley said. Fidelity executives hold 51 percent.
Johnson, 43, sold the shares to ''generation-skipping family trusts" that benefit current and future family members, Crowley said. The transfer was part of the Johnsons' ''estate-planning and family-succession process," she said.
Johnson was reassigned in May from Fidelity's investment-management division to its retirement-service group.
The timing of the two events suggests that ''Abby may not be in line to run the company," said Christopher Traulsen, a fund analyst with Chicago-based research firm Morningstar Inc.
People inside and outside the company have long identified Johnson as the heir apparent. The company hasn't said who is in line to succeed 75-year-old Edward Johnson.
Johnson had mixed success in her four years as president of the investment group, Fidelity Management & Research Co. Its funds struggled to match past performance or returns posted by rivals including American Funds and Vanguard Group.
The flagship Magellan Fund, once the industry's largest stock fund, has gained an annual average of 8.6 percent in three years, trailing 81 percent of similarly managed funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The $52.5 billion fund, managed by Robert Stansky, was overtaken as Fidelity's biggest in September by the $55.7 billion Contrafund, which is run by William Danoff.
Fidelity has endured yearlong regulatory and criminal investigations of its equity traders' acceptance of gifts from outside brokers. A half-dozen stock traders have since left the company, and Scott DeSano, the former head of the group, has been reassigned.
