- Fidelity Investments announced it named Bart Grenier as the head of its asset management division, which controls nearly $3 trillion in assets
Fidelity Investments announced it has named Bart Grenier as the head of its asset management division, which controls nearly $3 trillion in assets — according to Reuters. Grenier is going to be succeeding Steve Neff. Neff is retiring from Fidelity in the first quarter of 2020.
Going forward, Grenier is going to be running a division that repositioned the company’s popular mutual funds — such as Contrafund — to be less expensive while held in corporate 401(k) plans in order to fend off industry-wide problems of major withdrawals from actively managed funds.
Fidelity has also gone big on embraced passive index funds in order to compete intensely against Vanguard Group’s products.
Neff has been working at Fidelity for 23 years. And he ran the asset management arm of the company for under a year. Neff was head of technology and global services before taking the asset management position.
For the 12-month period ended October 31, Fidelity funds collected $87 billion in net deposits. The Fidelity 500 Index Fund FUSEX.O collected $32.4 billion in net deposits over the period for total assets of $215 billion, according to Morningstar. But
Vanguard’s mutual fund market share increased 1 percentage point over the past year to 25.6%. This is slightly more than the combined market share of its three biggest rivals, including Fidelity, American Funds, and BlackRock.
But Fidelity’s most popular mutual funds saw billions of dollars in net withdrawals, of which a large percentage has been shifted into collective investment trusts (CITs). The Fidelity Contrafund has over $29 billion in a CIT structure — which follows similar holdings and management strategies as the larger $120 billion mutual fund. However, CITs have lower fees since it is not regulated by the U.S. SEC.
Grenier has been serving as the global head of asset management at Fidelity International Ltd in London over the past couple of years. That company is run by the family of Fidelity Investments Chair Abby Johnson.
“Bart is the ideal candidate to succeed Steve,” said Johnson in a memo via Reuters. “The breadth of his experience across investment strategies and asset classes, as well as his strategic insights and spirit of innovation, makes him well suited to lead asset management.”
Grenier led Fidelity’s equity trading desk and eight other business groups during his tenure at the company. Between 1991 to 2005, Grenier worked at Fidelity and then left to join DB Advisors (division of Deutsche Asset Management). And then he rejoined Fidelity in 2017 leading to the job in London.
Andrew McCaffery will be succeeding Grenier as the global CIO of Fidelity. Grenier was appointed the role of global CIO in January 2018. McCaffery has over 30 years of experience as he spent eight years at Aberdeen Standard Investments before Fidelity.
