Hobby part of an exodus from Fidelity's ultra-high-net-worth tech platform. Roger Hobby, former head of Fidelity Investments' ailing Family Office Services (FOS) group, has left Fidelity after nearly 20 years to become president of Wilmington Trust FSB, New England.

"Roger brings considerable experience, strong leadership skills, and deep knowledge of the New England market to Wilmington Trust," says Mark Graham, head of Wilmington Trust Wealth Advisory Services group. "We are thrilled to have him lead the delivery of our exceptional wealth-advisory expertise to high-net-worth clients throughout the region."

Bingham Legg

Hobby became president of Fidelity FOS late last summer after former group head Lee Weiss left to found a family-office oriented investment advisory called Family Endowment Partners.

This time Hobby replaces Peter Simmons, who came to Wilmington Trust last year when the trust company bought Boston-based Bingham Legg Advisers (BLA) -- now Wilmington Trust's New England federal savings bank and an office of its Wealth Advisory Services -- from Baltimore-based asset manager Legg Mason and Boston-based law firm Bingham McCutchen.

Simmons had been BLA's CEO. He left Wilmington Trust about three months ago, according to Wilmington spokeswoman Jay Russell.

Hobby had been with Fidelity since 1989 and joined its FOS group -- which provides investment products and client services to ultra-high-net-worth family offices -- at its inception in 2004.

Shrinkage

The FOS group's new president John Hurley, formerly a member of Fidelity's consulting unit, heads a team that has shrunk from a staff of about 170 a year ago to around 80 as a result of layoffs and voluntary departures, according to a source familiar with the group.

Fidelity won't say if Hobby, who was still in charge of FOS a few weeks ago, left on his own or was asked to leave.

Last month Fidelity laid off an unnamed number of FOS staffers, with most of the pink slips going to personnel associated with the group's technology platform, according to company spokeswoman Anne Crowley. She added that the technologies in question -- proprietary approaches to data aggregation and performance reporting -- were in for a thorough overhaul.

Fidelity won't say whether it plans is to outsource these functions.

The view from outside Fidelity is that FOS is in jeopardy with chairman Ned Johnson's commitment to the endeavor coming under pressure from Fidelity president Rodger Lawson, a cost-cutter who views the provision of family-office services as an complex and costly undertaking aimed at a small and hard-to-reach market segment, according to a source who asked not to be named.

Fidelity declines to comment on this assessment.

Besides Boston and its HQ in Wilmington, Del., Wilmington Trust and its affiliates have U.S. offices in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Vermont. Outside the U.S. it has offices in the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands, the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. -FWR

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