Fidelity's equity head said to be moving to Putnam

Walter Donovan resigned Thursday from the top equity job at Fidelity Investments to take the same position at Putnam Investments, according to sources who declined to be identified. Mr. Donovan, Fidelity spokeswoman Anne Crowley and Putnam President and CEO Robert L. Reynolds weren't immediately available to comment. Putnam spokesman Jon Goldstein declined to comment. Mr. Donovan would be the highest profile hire by Mr. Reynolds, the former Fidelity vice chairman who took Putnam's helm last July with marching order to reverse the firm's steady downturn this decade - Putnam's client assets are currently less than $80 billion, down from a March 2000 high of $425 billion. Mr. Reynolds has called fixing Putnam's domestic equity performance woes the key to reviving the firm. For months he has promised to bring in a top-notch CIO who could make that division as strong as the firm's fixed-income and asset allocation teams, which he has termed top-notch on several occasions. Mr. Donovan, who was president of Fidelity Management & Research Co.'s equity division, would be the most prominent in a string of former Fidelity colleagues whom Mr. Reynolds has brought to Putnam over the past nine months. He would also be one of the most direct hires from Fidelity, as other veterans reuniting with Mr. Reynolds recently had previously left to work at competing Boston-based firms. For example, Jeffrey R. Carney, a former president of Fidelity Retirement Services, had been serving as president of Bank Of America Retirement and Global Wealth & Investment Management Client Solutions before coming to Putnam in October as senior managing director and head of global marketing and products. Likewise, Nick C. Thakore and Robert D. Ewing were former Fidelity portfolio managers who jumped to RiverSource Investments in 2002 before rejoining Mr. Reynolds in October as managing directors and portfolio managers of Putnam's large-cap equities team.