MutualFundWire.com: McColgan States Obvious
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Friday, April 27, 2007

McColgan States Obvious


The dust is finally starting to settle in Boston, but Beantown's best at are still trying to adjust as seen in an interview with The Boston Globe where Fidelity"'s Ellyn McColgan, is now "roughly equal in stature to Fidelity vice-chairwoman, Abigail Johnson."

That's a pretty difficult one to miss. The last word (see [UPDATE] What Changes Are in Store at Fido?) from Fidelity was that Abigail Johnson would maintain her title as president of the Boston Behemoth's human resources business and share distribution leadership with McColgan.

McColgan is very much the public face of Fidelity these days. During her sunny, upbeat interview with The Globe, McColgan touted Fidelity's success in the struggle to keep a tight rein on retirees 401(k) savings in the wake of their shift from accumulation to deccumulation.

McColgan said that while Fidelity's 401(k) participants are free to cash out and "park their money somewhere else," nearly half are choosing to roll at least some of their money into Fidelity brokerage accounts after they retire.

This "good news" may have something to do with the fact that they company manages 401(k) plans for more than 15,000 companies than with superior service, especially in light of the Boston Behemoth's underperformance in the mutual funds game, where it ranks third behind American Funds and Vanguard Group. ( see WSJ article).

Though McColgan and her Fidelity followers reportedly aim to keep as many of their 401(k) participants (and their estimated $851 billion in administrated assets) as possible as the Boomers make their way into the next phase of lifetime financial planning. But, the fact that the company's Retirement Income Advantage (see Fidelity Willing To Stay One Exec Short...)group is not expecting a leader anytime soon and that the company itself seems to be relying more on keeping business rather than growing it may not be good news for retirees in the long term.

Fidelity did not return calls for comment.


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