Fidelity Investments picks new president

BOSTON – Fidelity Investments, the second-biggest U.S. mutual-fund company, named Abigail P. Johnson president after consolidating all of the firm’s key units under her leadership, making her the industry’s highest-ranking woman, Bloomberg News reported last week.

Johnson, 50, will oversee asset management, retail and institutional brokerage, retirement and benefits services, the Boston-based firm said in a statement. She will report to her father, Edward C. “Ned” Johnson III, who remains the company’s chairman and CEO.

Fidelity has given the clearest indication yet of the firm’s succession plan even as 82-year-old Ned Johnson, who has led the company since 1977, has not said when he might retire. At various times, Robert L. Reynolds, the former chief operating officer, and Ellyn McColgan, the former head of mutual-fund sales, had been considered possible leaders at the firm, which has been controlled by the Johnson family since it was founded by Ned Johnson’s father in 1946.

Fidelity manages $1.6 trillion in assets. •