Fidelity, T. Rowe Cut Out Wall Street for CEO Meetings in Boston
Fidelity, T. Rowe Cut Out Wall Street for CEO Meetings in Boston
(Bloomberg) -- Investing giants including Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. are delivering on their ambition to cut out the middleman in arranging meetings with company executives.
The firms, which oversee more than $8 trillion, have independently set up access to such decision makers for their buyside CEO consumer conference next week in Boston, according to people briefed on the matter. At present the planners are monitoring the coronavirus outbreak and still plan to move forward with event, the people said.
“This approach has enabled us to be less reliant on third parties, whilst at the same time improving the quality of our meetings and our relationships with corporates,” said Marthe Skaar, a spokeswoman for Norges Bank Investment Management. It’s organizing the event with Fidelity, Capital Group, Wellington Management and T. Rowe.
The move, first floated by asset managers last year, is sidelining bankers that have traditionally brought together analysts and executives. The shift is an effort by active equity managers to gain an investing edge as their fees take a hit due to the popularity of inexpensive index funds.
New financial regulations in Europe have also amplified concerns on the buyside -- which in financial jargon means those who manage money -- about paying banks for access to companies in which
they invest.
Eliminating Wall Street as the go-between threatens another source of revenue for the banks, which have primarily organized such gatherings in which fund managers and analysts get one-on-one time with the publicly-traded companies that they track and invest in.
Representatives for Fidelity, T. Rowe and Capital Group declined to comment on the event. A Wellington spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
T. Rowe continues to “find value in the access to corporate leaders that Wall Street has facilitated over many years” but is adding its own direct corporate access program, a spokesperson said. That includes joining with other major asset-managers to plan separate corporate access events “that will provide a unique and tailored research experience for our company’s investors.”
--With assistance from Mikael Holter.
To contact the reporters on this story: Michael McDonald in Boston at mmcdonald10@bloomberg.net;John Gittelsohn in Los Angeles at johngitt@bloomberg.net;Annie Massa in New York at amassa12@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sam Mamudi at smamudi@bloomberg.net, Alan Mirabella
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