Radlo says goodbye to Fidelity

Fidelity Investments has been forced to shuffle its lineup of managers, after the sudden departure of Alan Radlo, announced late yesterday.

Until last night, Radlo managed more than $9.6 billion in assets, just under a quarter of Fidelity Canada’s total assets of $38.8 billion, including the Fidelity Canadian Growth Company Fund, Fidelity NorthStar Fund and the equity portion of the Fidelity Canadian Asset Allocation Fund.

“I just want to assure everyone that we have been preparing for such an event for years,” says Bob Haber, CIO of Fidelity. “We have created a deep resource called ‘Team Canada’ — we have the largest research department in the mutual fund business in Canada.

“We’re not making dramatic changes, because we do have people who have worked with Alan who have a lot of talent.”

Fidelity has already announced its plan to fill the gaps left by Radlo. Haber has taken over Radlo’s post as lead portfolio manager on the Canadian equity sub-portfolio of Fidelity Canadian Asset Allocation Fund.

He says the only changes in the fund will be an increase in concentration and a bias toward higher market capitalization stocks.

“As we chose managers for each of these funds, we wanted to make sure we kept the general objectives and philosophies the same,” Haber says. “We wanted to make sure we matched capabilities and strengths with the portfolio they were taking over, and we wanted to make sure we brought to the marketplace records that were at least as good, if not better, in this succession.”

On the Fidelity NorthStar Fund, Radlo has been succeeded by Cecilia Mo, along with Joel Tillinghast, who will be managing the U.S. equity portion of the fund, and Chris Goudie.

Maxime Lemieux steps into the role of portfolio manager on Fidelity Canadian Growth Company Fund, while Hugo Lavallée will join Lemieux as a co-portfolio manager on Fidelity Canadian Opportunities Fund.

Filed by Steven Lamb, Advisor.ca, steven.lamb@advisor.rogers.com