Fidelity Investments is moving to address a yearslong problem stemming from a range of workplace conduct, amid allegations of sexual harassment at the mutual fund giant.
The latest known fallout: Fidelity pushed longtime employee C. Robert Chow, 56 years old, to resign earlier this month, following allegations that he made inappropriate sexual comments to colleagues, according to people familiar with the matter.
A lawyer for Mr. Chow declined to comment.
The abrupt exit of the former portfolio manager, who worked most recently in an advisory unit at Fidelity, follows a report in The Wall Street Journal that Fidelity
fired a star tech fund manager accused of sexual harassment.
Fidelity spokesman Vincent Loporchio said company policies “specifically prohibit harassment in any form. When allegations of these sorts are brought to our attention, we investigate them immediately and take prompt and appropriate action. We simply will not, and do not, tolerate this type of behavior.”
Brian Hogan, president of Fidelity’s high-profile stock-picking division, held an emergency meeting last Monday afternoon with his staff to stress the firm’s “zero tolerance policy” for inappropriate workplace conduct, including sexual harassment, according to people familiar with the meeting.
Fidelity has hired a consulting firm to review employee behavior, including within the stock-picking or equity division, people familiar with the matter said.
Privately-held Fidelity, with more than 40,000 employees, is among the world’s largest investment and brokerage firms, with $2.13 trillion in assets under management and $5.7 trillion in assets under administration.
The issue of workplace conduct has been simmering within Fidelity’s stockpicking unit in particular for years. A 2015 internal report warned of cultural problems particularly adverse for women, according to interviews with more than a dozen former Fidelity analysts and portfolio managers.
Multiple employees have complained to superiors and the company’s human-resources department about sexual harassment and other abusive behavior by portfolio managers at the equity division, according to people familiar with the matter. Those complaints have alleged disparaging remarks about appearance and sexual innuendo toward women, as well as bullying of both genders. Complaints have led to firings of at least three portfolio managers over the past six years, people familiar with the terminations said.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Fidelity fired tech fund manager Gavin Baker in September for allegedly sexually harassing a junior female employee, according to an attorney for the woman and other people familiar with the matter. Other junior employees also had complained about Mr. Baker, the Journal reported. A spokesman for Mr. Baker said at the time that he “strenuously” denies any “supposed” allegations of sexual harassment and left the company “amicably.”
In 2011, Fidelity pushed out then-portfolio manager Andrew Sassine, 53, for his workplace behavior and performance, according to court documents. Mr. Sassine’s “terrible and still deteriorating relationships with Fidelity’s internal research analysts were well documented and communicated to the plaintiff,” according to a Fidelity court filing. Fidelity said in the filing that Mr. Sassine acknowledged that he “had developed a reputation as a bully among the analysts.”
Mr. Sassine sued Fidelity for wrongful termination related to a physical disability; the jury at the subsequent trial ruled in Fidelity’s favor. In an interview, Mr. Sassine acknowledged being “a very tough portfolio manager.” He said, “I was a tough individual but I was fair as well.”
A June 2015 report written by a working group of female Fidelity employees was presented to senior staff in the firm’s stock-picking unit, according to four people who saw the report or attended a presentation of it. Fidelity Chief Executive Abigail Johnson also received a copy, according to these people. The presentation warned of a male-dominated culture at the equity unit and its detrimental effects on women in particular, according to the people.
“We are not aware of this 2015 report with these conclusions or any presentation to senior leaders,” the Fidelity spokesman said.
Called “Culture Review,” the report criticized Fidelity’s compensation system, which relies in part on portfolio managers’ ratings of their subordinates, and said the environment led to “cultural improprieties” for women, the people who saw the report say. It suggested guidelines, including that portfolio managers should invite all analysts to dinners or other events they host, not just a select few, the people say.
The stock-picking unit, with about 60 portfolio managers and roughly 110 analysts in Boston, manages dozens of mutual funds and other investment products. Analysts are junior to portfolio managers and support their investment picks with research and new ideas and typically try to work their way up to those lead manager positions.
Within the unit, 9.5% of equity-fund managers were women in 2016, compared with 13.8% of managers at American Funds and Franklin Templeton, and 11.1% at
T. Rowe Price Group , Inc., according to fund-research firm
Morningstar Inc. Across all companies, 7.7% of stock fund managers globally are female.
Women in senior leadership positions at Fidelity include Ms. Johnson, the chief executive and chairman; Equity Chief Investment Officer Melissa Reilly ; and Judy Marlinski, president of its institutional asset management business.
Fidelity’s approach to rating and compensating analysts has been unpopular inside the stock-picking unit, according to the former employees.
Under that system, an analyst’s bonus is in part driven by his or her ability to successfully pick stocks. The other portion is a subjective measure of how useful portfolio managers find the analyst’s research, and what they think of the analyst’s communication and teamwork among other factors, according to people familiar with the matter.
That second measure has made it risky for some employees to speak up about inappropriate behavior, the former employees say.
Analysts also score portfolio managers. “The culture at Fidelity is such that analysts tend to give the numeric rating comfortably, but tend to give written comments more carefully for fear that such comments will later be attributed to them,” according to a Fidelity court filing related to Mr. Sassine’s termination.
Mr. Loporchio says Fidelity encourages employees to raise concerns about conduct internally, including through the “chairman’s line,” a telephone line where employees can report concerns anonymously.
The former managers and analysts say the compensation structure has at times given rise to a popularity contest inside Fidelity’s stock-picking unit, with analysts currying favor with portfolio managers.
Informal outings to bars, Red Sox baseball games and poker games hosted by male portfolio managers were particularly fraught, these people say. Some analysts and associates, male and female, felt pressure to go to these events to get a good rating, the former managers and analysts say. Others say they weren’t invited, creating what the 2015 report deemed a difficult culture.
Some employees in the stock-picking unit joked that they weren’t good enough unless they were invited to the “wine club,” gatherings of upper-echelon portfolio managers hosted at their homes, these people say.
Bruce Dirks, a former portfolio manager at Fidelity, said the subjective portion of analyst evaluations had long been a source of conflict and that the firm had tried to improve it. “There was always some concern there,” he said.
For portfolio managers, compensation was largely based on performance and assets managed, but “for the analyst and associates, it was much more difficult,” Mr. Dirks recalled. “The analysts hated that. They absolutely hated that.”
“Fidelity is a meritocracy and we pay for strong performance,” the Fidelity spokesman said. “If an analyst or portfolio manager is very good at picking stocks, they will succeed at Fidelity.”
At least two well-performing portfolio managers in the equity division have left that division or the firm within the past three years because they thought culture problems made it a difficult place to work, according to people familiar with the matter.
Several women complained within the past five years to managers and Fidelity’s human-resources department about disparaging comments allegedly made by James Morrow, 45, who manages about $28 billion within the equity unit, former employees said. Two people said Mr. Morrow also bullied well-performing analysts, male and female, whose investing style he didn’t agree with, by docking their scores in compensation reviews.
Mr. Morrow denied those allegations through a spokesman. “If analysts ever felt I was difficult, it has been unequivocally gender-blind,” Mr. Morrow said through the spokesman. Fidelity announced in April that Mr. Morrow was retiring at the end of 2017.
Earlier this year, a portfolio manager focused on mid-cap stocks, Court Dignan, was pushed to leave the firm after heated confrontations with colleagues including a junior analyst, people familiar with the matter said.
"I know nothing about any such allegations. I’m proud of what I accomplished while at Fidelity,” Mr. Dignan said in an interview. “I left Fidelity and the investment-management industry in order to change careers and lifestyle. I’m back in school and am enjoying it greatly.”
“Fidelity remains committed to providing all associates with an outstanding work environment and we will always work hard to ensure that we take swift and appropriate action when an individual violates our policies, and more importantly, our values,” Fidelity spokesman Mr. Loporchio said.
