Deals & People January 6, 2009

Fidelity Names Former Evergreen CEO to Institutional Services Post

Fidelity Investments named Peter Cieszko, former president and CEO of Evergreen Investments, as president of Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Company, Inc.
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Cieszko will join Fidelity this month and report to Michael K. Clark, president of Fidelity Institutional Products Group. “With the Institutional Products Group, we are aggressively building a market-leading organization serving a diverse set of intermediary markets that has the scale, flexibility and innovative capabilities needed to win in a turbulent and changing business environment,” said Clark, in the Fidelity announcement.

Prior to joining Fidelity, Cieszko was president and CEO of Evergreen Investments, the investment management arm of Wachovia. Since 2006, he also held the position of president of Global Distribution and Product Management at Evergreen with responsibilities for the firm’s long-term growth strategies including domestic and international sales and distribution, product development, and product management, according to the announcement. Cieszko joined Evergreen from Legg Mason, where he served as head of U.S. Distribution.

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Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Company, Inc., which manages $272 billion in assets, is a provider of investment management services through more than 1,000 financial institutions and 44,000 advisers.

Data & Research January 6, 2009

Younger Workers More Focused on Fiscal Fitness

Fiscal fitness, not physical fitness, is a slightly higher priority for younger adults than for older adults, according to a survey commissioned by Union Bank.
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However, only a few adults mentioned meeting with a financial adviser as how they plan to get in fiscal shape, according to a press release of the results. Nearly half (45%) of respondents indicated they plan to save money on a monthly basis through their existing bank accounts. Only a small number of adults said they intend to contribute to a new savings account (15%) and/or meet with a financial adviser to maximize their savings through tax-deferred accounts (14%).

The survey found 59% of respondents ages 18 to 34 are focused more intently on achieving fiscal fitness rather than physical fitness in 2009 (41%). In contrast, 61% of adults age 55 and older said physical fitness was a high priority for 2009, and 39% selected fiscal fitness.

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In addition, fewer older adults (38% of those age 55 and older) expressed interest in ways to save automatically than Americans age 18 to 34 (46%), which Union Bank said may account for the older group’s sense that attaining fiscal fitness is harder today than achieving physical fitness (72%).

The survey revealed that 72% of adults age 34 to 55 believe they do not have enough money saved in the proper accounts to make it through the next year. In addition, nearly half of those surveyed (45%) said that if they had access to a large amount of money without penalty, paying off debt would be their top priority rather than saving money or making a large purchase such as a home, car, or vacation.

For many respondents, a significant barrier to saving money is a lack of extra funds at the end of the month, a sentiment especially strong among women age 35 to 44 (70%).

Harris Interactive fielded the study from December 5 to 9, interviewing a nationwide sample of 2,137 adults aged 18 years and older.

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