Ned Johnson must've been smiling yesterday. In its annual shareholder report, Johnson's Fidelity Investments [profile] revealed a 13 percent operating income boost to $3.3 billion last year, along with a 3.3 percent jump in revenue and continued net outflows thanks to equity and money market woes. Associated Press columnist Mark Jewell, Barron's, Bloomberg, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, Dow Jones and Reuters all reported on the Boston-based mutual fund titan's results.

Reuters noted that, by comparison, BlackRock's operating income climbed seven percent in 2011 to $3.4 billion.

Fidelity Insight newsletter editor John Bonnanzio told Reuters that Fidelity "showed deft management by boosting revenue in the face of a decline in assets under management. Total revenue rose 3.3 percent to $12.76 billion."

"Income was up, too. It demonstrates the power of making strategic cuts to your balance sheet," Bonnanzio said. "I'm a bit surprised by how good a year they had."

Fidelity's total AUM dipped four percent last year to $1.52 trillion. The firm said it suffered a total of $20.1 billion in net outflows in 2011.

"2011 was an especially difficult year for Fidelity's active equity managers -- and even more so for our peers -- with most funds not beating their benchmarks for the one-year period," Ronald O'Hanley, Fidelity's president of asset management, wrote in the shareholder report. 

Edited by: HFD


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