Given the text: I f Fidelity was looking for an enthusiastic proponent to head UK distribution, it has not gone far wrong with Michael Jones.
Jones hails from the institutional side of the fund management business at Merrill Lynch although his last position there was in third-party retail. But there is little to suggest he will not be able to adapt to the cut and thrust of selling Fidelity to IFAs.
Jones says he did not have to think twice when he was offered the post as Fidelity was top of the list of places he wanted to work. But he admits he was fascinated to see what Fidelity was like from the inside.
He enthuses about the robustness of Fidelity&#39s investment engine and the fact that its success is repeatable, adding that he had to satisfy himself that this was the case before he would have accepted any asset management job.
Jones says almost all IFA firms in the UK have dealt with Fidelity in some form in the last 12 months and also notes that the group has very strong franchises, working with insurance companies and banks.
But he does concede that the group may have been punching below its weight when it comes to wealth management – IFA discretionary managers, multi-manager and fund of funds.
Where the group is open is in how it plans to take advantage of depolarisation. As with any fund group, Fidelity is not going to turn down new sources of distribution.
In terms of FundsNetwork, Jones does not seem keen to enter into a war of words with Cofunds, with which there have been recent spats over pricing and which Fidelity has challenged aggressively. Jones says the US experience shows that fund supermarkets will grow as increasingly sophisticated tools are deployed to complement the supermarket structure.
One thorny issue which Jones may one day have to deal with is the retirement of star fund manager Anthony Bolton from the UK special situations fund. This is a key question that IFAs want put to Fidelity. When asked, Jones&#39s response is well prepared.
He stresses that Bolton has undertaken to review the situation year on year and will effectively be giving 18 months&#39 notice. He also suggests that Bolton&#39s tenure should be viewed in the context of the huge number of fund manager moves across the market – something Fidelity is rarely affected by. He also points out that Bolton still seems to love his job and is still doing three to four company interviews each day.
But in the event of Bolton&#39s retirement, he is also adamant that Fidelity “will not drop the ball on this” and points to the performance of the European funds where Bolton has already relinquished control. He also has faith in the rest of the stable.
“There are lots of very good fund managers like Sanjeev Shah and John Stavis, who are already stepping up to the plate. They are sometimes viewed as young guns and young pretenders. Actually, they are people in their mid-30s and they are dyed-in-the-wool Fidelity people,” he says.
Jones clearly finds the job fascinating but says he switches off instantly when he gets home, with tennis and supporting Bath rugby club featuring among his passions.
He says he switches on again only when in the shower on Monday morning but when he is there he is clearly focused on the job.
Heroes: Mervyn Davies, Welsh international rugby player and a teacher at my school. Ian Botham, for telling it like it is. Richard Branson, for sheer nerve.
How does Jones address the potential retirement of star fund manager Anthony Bolton from the UK special situations fund, and what is his response to the question of whether Fidelity will be able to maintain its success without Bolton?
This prompt doesn't seem malicious