Fidelity Puts a Number on Q1 Cuts

Fidelity Investments on Friday told workers that there would be 1,700 fewer of them during the first quarter.

The mutual fund giant last week notified 1,300 workers that their positions had been eliminated (see Fidelity Announces Job Cuts), and on Friday confirmed that the second wave of cuts would total about another 1,700 jobs. More precisely, according to the Wall Street Journal, Fidelity’s president, Rodger Lawson, told employees in a video-conference Friday that the total number of layoffs would include about 3,000 employees, or about 7% of Fidelity’s total work force of 44,000.

Fidelity attributed the need for cutbacks to the market downturn. While the firm is cutting its work force in most divisions, it said that no portfolio managers or investment analysts will be affected by the layoffs. The company says it’s also trying to maintain staff in its customer-service departments.

Nuveen Introduces Alternative Investments Unit

Nuveen Investments announced the creation of Nuveen Alternative Investments, a new unit designed to serve the needs of institutional investors seeking alternative forms of alpha and uncorrelated returns.

According to the announcement, the new unit will be led by Nuveen Investments President Mark Anson, and Managing Director Jamshaud Zovein. Anson previously served as CEO of Hermes Pensions Management Ltd., the British Telecom Pension Scheme, and prior to that, the Chief Investment Officer of the $245 billion California Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).

Zovein currently heads Nuveen Investments’ Institutional Product Development and Management team.

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The announcement said one of the key objectives of Nuveen Alternative Investments is the creation of a suite of alternative investments as well as the development of Nuveen’s Global Endowment Model. The Global Endowment Model will draw upon the expertise and strengths of Nuveen Investment Solutions to employ asset allocation, global manager search and selection, and risk management strategies similar to those used by the largest pension and endowment programs.

“Our focus will be to leverage the investment approach of the more sophisticated endowment and pension programs, to bring to investors actively managed multi-manager, multi-asset, and multi-strategy funds that achieve consistent, long-term absolute returns while taking on significantly less risk than the traditional market,” said Zovein, in the announcement.

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