Fidelity's Disappearing Bottom Line
From The Boston Globe
The nation's largest fund company saw net profits plunge by 16.8% in 1998 to $445.7 million, from $535.6 million in 1997. The disappearing bottom line came despite 15.3% growth in its topline which burgeoned to $6.78 billion, a record for the company. Fidelity's hometown paper reports that the decline in profits was mostly due to spending on technology projects including spending on preparing its in-house systems for the millennium. Altogether, its sales of mutual funds nearly doubled to $32.6 billion. However, most of these sales were money market funds. Its sales of equity funds plummeted to $8.5 billion from almost $15 billion in 1997. Sales of money market funds totaled $19.8 billion and sales of bond funds were $4.4 billion. Fidelity reported that it now manages $765 billion in assets -- 24% more than in 1997.

Lisanti Lands on Two Feet
From The Wall Street Journal
Mary Lisanti has landed on her feet at Reliastar after having left Strong. The WSJ reports that the star manager is succeeding as the manager of a large cap stock fund -- the Northstar Growth Fund. The lesson: style matters more than the manager. 

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