Amex comes calling

American Express, which last month lured four hotshot fund managers from Fidelity Investments, isn’t done poaching.

“This business is all about talent, and we are serious about building our talent,” Amex CIO Ted Truscott tells Institutional Investor. “Should Boston money managers be afraid of me stealing their people? Absolutely.”

American Express Financial Advisors, whose AXP funds run $80 billion in mutual funds, has set up an office in Boston - its first outside of its home base in Minneapolis. By April Amex will have shifted some $12 billion in equities - mostly large caps - to Massachusetts.

Amex can use the new blood from Fidelity. Several AXP funds have performed poorly of late. Truscott was hired in September from Zurich Scudder to revive a mutual fund operation that had $1.6 billion in outflows last year and saw 15 of its 36 equity funds in the bottom quartile of performance, according to Lipper.

The four fund managers who left Fidelity - Nick Thakore, Doug Chase, Bob Ewing and Tellis Bertsekas - were its first serious defections in years. They will take over some of AXP’s worst performers.

“We are totally focused on improving performance,” says Truscott. “All of our managers have been put on notice that the numbers have to get better.”

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