Short Takes: Fidelity Unit Chief Joins Strategy Panel

Fidelity Investments' parent company, FMR Corp., has appointed Paul J. Hondros to its operating committee, a nine-member executive group that formulates corporate strategy.

Mr. Hondros, 47, is president of Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Co., a unit of the mutual fund giant that markets portfolios through financial intermediaries.

The move demonstrates that financial advisers are becoming more important to Fidelity, though the fund complex's dominance was in the industry built by bypassing brokers and selling directly to investors.

The operating committee, composed of key leaders of FMR businesses, reports to chairman and chief executive Edward C. Johnson 3d.

Fidelity manages $373.2 billion in fund assets. The contribution from banks, brokerages, and financial planners now stands at $94 billion, or one-quarter of all assets.

Fidelity assets garnered through financial intermediaries jumped almost ninefold in the past three years.

Mr. Hondros, a former Philadelphia police officer, became president of the unit in 1990 after a stint with SEI Corp., a competing mutual fund company.

In other news, Fidelity Investments has appointed Robert L. Reynolds, 43, to the newly created position of president of the fund company's institutional retirement group.

He will oversee Fidelity's retirement products and related services offered to corporations, nonprofits, and government entities.

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