Fidelity sought candidates to succeed Lawson-WSJ

July 10 (Reuters) - Fidelity Investments, the world's biggest mutual funds firm, has sought potential candidates to succeed its president Rodger Lawson who rejoined the company in mid-2007 and has undertaken a major overhaul of Fidelity, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Lawson is Fidelity's No. 2 executive and reports to Chairman and Chief Executive Edward Johnson III, the paper said.

According to the paper, a long-time acquaintance of Lawson said the Fidelity president recently told him he would like to leave between now and the end of the year.

This person said Lawson wants to wait until the Johnson family has a successor lined up, the paper added.

In May, an industry executive who spoke with the company's internal search firm told Reuters that Fidelity has been looking for a senior executive who could oversee all investment operation. However, the executive said that the exact role isn't clear. [ID:nN18367663]

Bill Holodnak, president of J. Robert Scott, a Boston executive-recruitment firm owned by Fidelity, said he had recently conducted a search for potential successors to Lawson, the paper said.

Holodnak said he wasn't looking for someone to take Lawson's job directly, but for a candidate who would join Fidelity in another capacity and become a candidate for the president's post, The Wall Street Journal said.

He described his search as part of Fidelity's ongoing succession-planning efforts. He said he found a number of good candidates, but the search was concluded about a month ago, and he had no knowledge of any further succession searches, the paper added.

Two people with long experience in the financial industry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, say they were approached by Holodnak about the Fidelity president's post, the paper said.

One said that at times, Holodnak described the position as a stepping-stone to Lawson's job, but that at other times, he said Fidelity wanted a candidate to take Lawson's job immediately, the paper reported.

According to the daily, Holodnak said he has never looked for an immediate successor for Lawson and that sometimes job candidates "hear what they want to hear."

Since he took the post of the president in 2007, Lawson has replaced nearly all of Fidelity's top management and undertaken layoffs and other cost cuts in the face of declining assets.

The latest personnel shifts include, replacing the retired head of its fixed-income division with former Goldman Sachs executive Christopher Sullivan.

In April Lawson promoted an insider, Brian Hogan, to run its equities division after his predecessor left for Putnam Investments.

Other changes include new stock analysts and adding professionals in Hong Kong and Tokyo, plus a new Miami office to focus on Latin American stocks.

Fidelity and Bill Holodnak could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters. (Reporting by Hezron Selvi in Bangalore; Additional reporting by and Ross Kerber in Boston)