CI Financial Corp. has wooed away key managers Robert Swanson and Brandon Snow from rival Fidelity Investments Canada.
The two men, who left Fidelity recently, have resurfaced to join CI Financial's Boston-based Cambridge Advisors investment team headed by their former colleague and Fidelity star Alan Radlo.
Derek Green, president of CI Financial's fund arm, said that there will be a couple of new funds added under the Cambridge banner over the next couple of months.
"We are extremely excited about this [hire]" Mr. Green said in an interview on Wednesday. "If you look at Alan, Bob and Brandon, they have over 60 years of managing money."
Mr. Swanson, whose last day at Fidelity was last Friday, was leader of the Fidelity Canadian asset allocation team and lead manager of several funds, including a Canadian asset allocation fund. He has been replaced by Fidelity mangers Derek Young and Geoff Stein who are now co-leaders of the team.
Mr. Snow, who ran $1.7-billion in assets in the Fidelity Canadian Growth Company and Fidelity Canadian Large Cap Fund, left in late March. He was succeeded, respectively, by Fidelity managers Mark Schmehl and Daniel Dupont on those two funds.
Mr. Radlo, chief investment officer for the Cambridge funds and 17-year Fidelity veteran, joined CI Financial on Jan. 1, 2008. He was on the sidelines for 12 months because of a one-year non-compete agreement with Fidelity's Boston-based parent. The Cambridge funds now have $2.3-billion in assets.
Dan Hallett, an analyst at HighView Financial Group and who has Mr. Radlo's Cambridge Canadian Equity Fund on his recommended list of funds, said the hires "certainly help to bolster that team that Alan Radlo started, and reunites people who have worked together in the past."
The departures from Fidelity are "a significant loss…but the real measure is whether there is enough depth at the firm they have left to cover their responsibilities," Mr. Hallett said. "If you look at all the people they have lost over the years at Fidelity, it is such a large organization that they always have somebody to slot in a departed person's place."