Fidelity after Edward Johnson III

A Boston Globe columnist, Steven Syre, has a column about speculation currently swirling around Boston: What will happen to Fidelity after Chairman Edward C. "Ned" Johnson III? Johnson is 76, and his daughter Abigail is a major Fidelity shareholder, but it's not clear what role she would play. Another potential internal candidate may be out of the running, too, says Syre and Fidelity Investor editor Jim Lowell:

Now Bob Reynolds , the company's chief operating officer and legitimate dark-horse succession candidate, has complicated the picture further by becoming a finalist in the competition to select a new commissioner for the National Football League. He is among five remaining candidates for one of the best jobs in professional sports.

"Everyone at Fidelity understands there's going to be a major transition sooner rather than later," says Jim Lowell , publisher of the Fidelity Investor newsletter. "It sounds to me that he's laying the groundwork for his own exit strategy. There's something in Fidelity's current playbook that has led Bob Reynolds to say he's willing to switch teams."

Syre has more to say on the subject, and prints a lot of gossip in the column, but the important thing for Fidelity customers to remember is changes at the top will have an inevitable effect on the services we receive from the company. Because when a new chairman comes in, personnel changes and policy changes are a given. And the new folks may not like the way the website looks or performs, and may determine certain services are not profitable enough and push through changes that make it more expensive or less convenient for the little guy.

And while some of these changes will be transparent and well publicized, others may pushed to the end of a legalese-filled license agreement or buried in the fine print of a prospectus, where we're less likely to notice and therefore less likely to complain.

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