Fidelity's Ned Johnson Passes
The Wall Street Journal writes "Edward 'Ned' Johnson, Former Fidelity CEO, Dies." The piece explains, "Edward 'Ned' Johnson III, who transformed Fidelity Investments into a financial behemoth and opened Wall Street to millions of Americans, died Wednesday. Mr. Johnson was 91 years old.... Fidelity was the first to offer a money-market fund that let investors write checks on their holdings." The piece adds, "Fidelity made its first direct contact with Main Street in 1974 with its new money-market fund offering. The firm launched its brokerage in 1978, and in 1982 started selling retirement accounts to U.S. companies. In 1995, Fidelity became the first major investment firm with a website." The Boston Globe, in "Edward C. Johnson III dies; his leadership of Fidelity helped transform investing," writes, "Mr. Johnson led the Boston investment giant for about four decades, helping grow the sums Fidelity invested for customers from $3.9 billion to $4.5 trillion. In a city known for its many financial companies, Fidelity towered above them all under his leadership.... Mr. Johnson decided Fidelity needed something other than stock funds. That turned out to be Fidelity Daily Income Trust, a money market fund that came with an unusual feature: Customers could write checks on their money market accounts. Mr. Johnson also believed Fidelity could sell more shares of the new money market fund by bypassing brokers and appealing directly to investors. Newspaper ads promoted the new money market, and the phones began to ring at Fidelity. Even Mr. Johnson took orders from callers." They add, "Fidelity became a big competitor in the money market business but hit its real stride when the stock market took off in the early 1980s. Mr. Johnson gave successful stock fund managers the freedom to become investment stars, pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars from individual investors who wanted a piece of the market."
