Edward C. Johnson III, 91, Dies; Made Fidelity an Investment Giant

Mr. Tsai wound up promoting his stake in Constancy and moved to New York, the place he created the Manhattan Fund and have become a billionaire company financier. He died in 2008.

For many years, Constancy was the topic of intense hypothesis about whom Mr. Johnson would designate as his successor. After holding varied senior positions on the firm and changing into for a time its largest shareholder, his daughter Abigail was named chief govt in 2014. At his loss of life, Mr. Johnson’s title was chairman emeritus.

Final yr, Forbes journal ranked Abigail Johnson and her father because the twenty seventh and sixtieth richest folks on the planet, with belongings totaling $36.7 billion.

His solely son, Edward IV, is president of Pembroke, an actual property agency affiliated with Constancy, and his different daughter, Elizabeth, shouldn’t be concerned within the household enterprise. Along with his kids, Mr. Johnson is survived by his spouse, Elizabeth (Hodges) Johnson, whom he married in 1960, and 7 grandchildren.

In 2007, in a uncommon interview, Mr. Johnson ruminated to Institutional Investor journal about managing personal firms. He declared that whereas outsiders could also be given necessary roles, relations must be outstanding to offer stability “and an ongoing philosophy or tradition of doing issues a sure manner.”

A significant aspect of Mr. Johnson’s managerial model was his adoption of kaizen, a Japanese technique involving fixed incremental enchancment that he discovered about from a ebook he had discovered within the reward store of a Tokyo resort. He employed the writer to lecture Constancy executives, made a video about kaizen for brand spanking new staff and wrote the foreword to a different kaizen ebook, which included Constancy as a case examine.

Observers have typically instructed that Mr. Johnson’s devotion to kaizen may clarify the frequent personnel shifts at Constancy, together with Mr. Johnson’s removing of his daughter Abigail as head of the mutual fund division, which was affected by mediocre efficiency, in 2005.