MFS Investment Management, the $576 billion asset manager founded in Boston a century ago, revealed the succession plan for its chief executive on Thursday. Chief investment officer Edward “Ted” Maloney will take over as CEO a year from now, January 1, 2025. He will replace Michael Roberge, another veteran of the firm who will become the executive chair of the company.
The new CEO will report to Roberge in the coming year but lead the strategic direction and vision of MFS, including the investment, distribution, finance, human resources, legal, and technology teams at the firm.
Maloney joined MFS in 2005 as an equity research analyst, became a portfolio manager shortly after, and then was promoted to oversee research. He became CIO in 2019 and will continue to hold that position. In recent years he’s established a team of co-CIOs responsible for equity and fixed income portfolios and played a key role in making the investment division more diverse and inclusive.
Like other successions at MFS, this one was years in the making and will include a long transition.
“Having worked with Ted for nearly two decades, I have seen firsthand the profound impact that his leadership has had on the firm and our clients worldwide and know he is the best person to lead MFS forward,” Roberge said in a statement about the announcement. “As MFS approaches its centennial anniversary in 2024, I cannot help but think about the next century ahead. While there is no telling exactly what will come, I am certain that Ted and future generations of MFS leaders will continue to serve with purpose and conviction to create value responsibly on behalf of our clients.”
Roberge has been with MFS for 28 years and, like Maloney, was an investment professional who climbed through the leadership ranks. He was a portfolio manager, helped lead fixed-income investing and research, and was president of MFS from 2010 through 2017 and co-CEO from 2015 through 2016.
MFS has a historical claim to fame: it launched the first U.S. open-end mutual fund in 1924, a product that ultimately gave millions of everyday investors easier exposure to markets. Like some other mutual funds, MFS was synonymous with star portfolio managers and leaned heavily into growth and technology stocks in the 1990s. Poor performance followed the bursting of the tech bubble and the firm was pummeled by investor redemptions as a result. Shortly after, Robert Manning took over as CEO, abandoned the firm’s reliance on star managers for a teamwork-based system, and overhauled the investment process geared toward careful diversification rather than big bets.
Today, it’s a global investment firm that counts financial advisors, intermediaries, and institutional investors as clients. Like many other mutual fund firms, MFS also recently launched ETFs.
