By Ross Kerber
BOSTON (Reuters) – Edward C. “Ned” Johnson 3d, an American billionaire investor and philanthropist who as chairman of Fidelity Investments propelled the family business to a dominant place in finance for decades, died on Wednesday at age 91, the company said.
Johnson “died peacefully on March 23, 2022, surrounded by his loving family,” Fidelity said in a press release. A representative added Johnson died of natural causes.
Johnson led the Boston-based business founded by his father for nearly 40 years before passing the chairman’s title to his daughter Abigail Johnson in 2016.
On his watch Fidelity transformed personal investing through the use of new technologies like telephone services and by promoting famous fund managers like Peter Lynch, the former manager of Magellan Fund.
In later years, Fidelity’s actively-managed funds lost ground to cheaper passive products from rivals like BlackRock Inc. Fidelity still ran $4.5 trillion across all its managed investment products as of its latest shareholder letter for 2021.
(Reporting by Ross Kerber; Editing by Chris Reese and Diane Craft)
