Fidelity to Offer Line of Team-Managed Funds

In a bid to drive sales, Fidelity will introduce a family of team-managed funds overseen by former Magellan manager Robert Stansky, The Wall Street Journal reports. Each member of the eight-member team will specialize in a sector, and they are expected to be the cream of Fidelity’s crop. While Magellan didn’t fare well under Stansky’s helm, he is well regarded as a good manager of other people.

This is a new approach for Fidelity, which heretofore had used a “star” system. It’s possible the firm decided to emulate the team approach at American Funds, which has had very strong flows in recent years and is second in net sales so far this year.

For the first time in 20 years, Fidelity isn’t ranking in the top 25 of sales, according to Financial Research Corp.

“It’s not lost on them how American Funds has been doing,” said James Lowell, editor of Fidelity Investor. “Fidelity is not only interested in doing what its competition is doing, but doing it better.”

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