When Fidelity [profile] hired Tony Rochte away from State Street Global Advisors earlier this year, the speculation was that he'd be focused on ETFs.

It turns out his job is bigger than that.

First things first, Fidelity's internal name of the new division is SelectCo. Fidelity spokesman Jeff Cathie elaborated to MFWire on the Boston behemoth's plans for the division.

MFWire previously reported Rochte's hiring in August, along with Fidelity's initial plans for the division.

Cathie said that "Fidelity has one of the industry’s largest lineups of actively managed sector funds."

"While we have certainly been successful in growing our sector fund business — an industry we helped pioneer over 30 years ago — we are pursuing ways to enhance our focus on the rapidly growing sector investing market," he said.

To accomplish this, he said, "earlier this year we established a new division that will focus exclusively on leveraging our current sector investment management expertise and scale to meet the evolving needs of our clients for more specialized sector portfolio investment options."

At this time, Cathie said that Fidelity is "not focused on specific products or investment vehicles, but rather on how we best position Fidelity to further develop its sector investing capabilities in a manner that will best meet the needs of our clients."

Moreover, he said, "enhancing our focus on sector investing will further demonstrate our acumen in this area, while expanding the universe of options for our clients. We want to leverage our sector investment expertise to develop new and innovative products for our clients."

"Fidelity has a long, proven history of innovating and successfully starting new businesses when there is a significant market opportunity, and such an endeavor makes long-term sense for the company, our associates and clients," he said.

Cathie said that the new division, for the moment, is being called SelectCo. However, SelectCo is not a brand name, but a temporary designation for the unit, only used internally at Fidelity.

"It is in the early stages of building this new division and we may consider a different name, if appropriate," he said. 

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