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OSLO (AFX) - The number of registered jobless in Norway at the end of February was 50,938 after seasonal adjustments, down from a revised 51,788 in January, the labour directorate said.

In absolute figures, the number of registered jobless was 52,059, or 2.2 pct of the workforce, down from a revised 2.3 pct the previous month.

alastair.reed@thomson.com

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Bank of Montreal, stung by losses and writedowns in the shaky markets of recent months, has recruited a retired New York risk specialist to sit on its board.

Until 2006, Don M. Wilson III was chief risk officer at investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. with responsibility for credit, equity, market and operational risk around the world, BMO said Friday in a statement announcing the move. JPMorgan Chaseis the financial giant now in the process of buying what is left of Bear Stearns,a casualty of the U.S. subprime-mortgage disaster. BMO three-month chart

Wilson, an Ohio native and Harvard graduate, began his banking career in 1973 at Chemical Bank, a predecessor to JPMorgan Chase.

In the past year, BMO has taken hits costing hundreds of millions of dollarsin once-obscure corners of the financial world such as asset-backed commercial paper. The bank’s stock price,above $70 a share last year, has plummeted to about $46 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

“We are pleased to welcome Don to the board of directors,”BMO chairmanDavid Galloway said inthe statement. “He is a superbly qualified individual who brings a broad competence in financial markets and all aspects of risk management.

“I am confident that Don’s wealth of experience in financial institutions globally will serve the bank well.” Post a commentPeople have commented on this story Recommend this story People have recommended this story Story Tools: | | Text Size: | | Story comments (0) Sort: Most recent | First to last

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BOSTON: At age 77, Edward “Ned” Johnson 3rd cannot keep this pace up forever. But it sometimes seems the chief of Fidelity Investments hopes to.

Johnsons tenure running the largest U.S. mutual fund company has spanned three decades - the only other change of leadership in 61 years at Fidelity was when Johnson took over from his father. But the job has become increasingly complex as Johnson tries to fend off rivals gains and streamline operations, while outsiders calls for governance reform grow louder.

“He hasnt missed a beat, and a lot of people have crumbled while hes still going 100 miles per hour,” said Eric Kobren, a former Fidelity employee who edits the independent money advice newsletter Fidelity Insight. He suspects Johnson “isnt going anywhere soon.”

The notoriously insular company is not publicly offering a timeline for leadership change, or disclosing details of a succession plan it says it has in place, even amid some suggestions that the uncertainty could be hurting Fidelitys ability to compete.

The heir apparent - Johnsons 46-year-old daughter, Abigail Johnson - has not been confirmed as such, and some observers question whether she even wants the job. And a flurry of management and organizational changes this year eliminated two other successor candidates from contention.

Outsiders still regard Abigail Johnson as an odds-on favorite for the top job, by virtue not only of her bloodline, but the diversity of management positions she has held overseeing Fidelitys increasingly far-flung financial services.

But her father is still firmly in charge - and by all accounts, apparently healthy.

“Nothing has told me that hes anxious to pass the baton very quickly, unless something were to develop with his health, or some family issue,” said Patrick McGovern, a friend who occasionally dines with Johnson and is founder and chairman of IDG Group, a Boston-based technology research and publishing firm.

Fidelity rarely makes executives available for interviews, and declined requests from The Associated Press. A recent statement issued by Ned Johnson on succession planning described a continuing process to “pass the corporation on in good operating order to the next generation of executives at the appropriate time.”

Whoever eventually succeeds Johnson, big changes are expected at the Boston-based company that is a huge force on Wall Street, as the largest provider of Americans workplace retirement savings plans and a manager of nearly $1.6 trillion in assets.

Observers say Johnsons successor will not have as much power as he has wielded filling the chairman and chief executive roles since 1977 - posts that could be split between two people when his replacement is named. And the private firm will face increasing pressure to operate more like a publicly held company, with greater attention to open governance, cost-cutting and short-term financial results.

“Whoever follows Ned Johnson cant run it the way he has - the old model doesnt work anymore,” said Bruce Raynor, co-chairman of the Council of Institutional Investors, representing public, labor, and corporate pension funds, and general president of Unite Here, a union of hospitality and textile workers.

Fidelity has recently diversified from its core mutual fund business into areas like individual retirement planning and employee benefit management, after seeing only middling returns in recent years from key mutual funds that fueled rapid growth in the late 1980s and early 90s.

Today, 46,400 Fidelity employees provide financial services to 23 million individuals.

Meanwhile, Vanguard Group and Capital Groups American Funds have recently enjoyed greater success attracting investor money amid rising popularity of low-cost index and exchange-traded funds.

Those investments do not play off Fidelitys strength as an active manager of funds that capitalize on the hottest stocks from day to day.

At Fidelity, Johnson family members hold 49 percent of Fidelitys voting stock - key managers control the rest - and the companys board consists solely of current or former company executives and Johnson family members.

The structure has come under criticism not only from activists like Raynor, but from Moodys Investors Service. A November report on Fidelitys creditworthiness questioned whether Ned Johnson and his family wield too much power, and said Johnson and other managers have not adequately defended the companys once-dominant position in mutual funds.

Moodys also said unresolved questions about leadership succession and recent management changes had created uncertainty that could hurt efforts to draw top talent to Fidelity.

Among its competitors, American Funds manages just 30 large funds compared with Fidelitys assortment of 431, and avoids mainstream media advertising in favor of brokers recommendations to clients about fund performance. Like Fidelity, American Funds is privately owned by employees, but without a dominant family like the Johnsons. Teams of “portfolio counselors” manage individual funds, adding more counselors as funds grow in size. In contrast, Fidelity typically closes funds to new investors when they get too big. Fidelity traditionally gives an individual manager broad oversight to run a fund, although it recently launched new team-managed funds.

As the writers strike keeps the television networks scrambling to fill their schedules, the producers of reality shows are gladly stepping in to fill the vacuum.

And with the propensity of those producers to incorporate the products of sponsors into the programs, dont be surprised if the vacuum bears a brand name like Hoover or Dyson.

It is typically easier to weave a product into an episode of a reality show like “American Idol” or “Survivor” than into a scripted series like “Greys Anatomy” or “Two and a Half Men.”

For one thing, the contestants in reality shows are usually more willing to pitch products than the actors in scripted programs. Actors prefer to worry about their art - and their long-term value as endorsers of a certain soda if viewers have already watched them cheerfully drinking a different brand.

Also, viewers seem more tolerant when products turn up in settings that are deemed realistic rather than fictitious.

A result is that the networks are expanding their reality plans, particularly as the ratings for some strike fare like “American Gladiators” are surpassing the viewership for the scripted shows they replaced.

NBC, which has embraced reality perhaps more ardently than its competitors, is even planning a prime-time reality special for May 11 that is being developed by and for an advertiser, Teleflora. The show - which also involves the NBC morning show “Today,” Redbook magazine and the Reveille production company - will center on a search for “Americas Favorite Mom.”

Needless to say, the winner can expect to be festooned with flowers, and a rose is to be named in her honor.

“Were looking to be the best partners for our advertisers,” said Ben Silverman, co-chairman at NBC Entertainment, part of NBC Universal, a division of General Electric. And one way to do that, he said, is “building programming assets in partnership with our advertisers.”

The trend of reality programs becoming showcases for brands is even having an impact on series in which advertisers are not paying to place products.

For instance, the Clearly Canadian line of beverages is featured prominently in a reality series, “Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist,” which will make its debut Thursday on the Mojo HD network as part of a block of three business shows called “Mojo Money Night.”

The series follows the adventures - and misadventures - of Bobby Genovese, an entrepreneur in the field of so-called small-cap or penny stocks; he owns companies including the BG Capital Group and BG Capital Management.

A good deal of the plot of the eight weekly episodes of “Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist” is devoted to his efforts to revive Clearly Canadian through steps like hiring as an endorser a popular Canadian-born athlete, Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns basketball team.

“I love brand-name companies, especially ones that have fallen on hard times,” Genovese said in a telephone interview.

Even so, he added, “I had no idea the beverage business is as tough as it is.”

Mojo HD is part of In Demand Networks, which is owned by a consortium that includes Comcast and Cox Communications. The channel is aimed at an affluent audience, primarily male and aged 18 to 49.

Although brands are prevalent in “Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist,” the viewers are sophisticated enough to distinguish between programming and infomercials, said Nick Davis, executive producer of the series for Nick Davis Productions.

“We were encouraged to tell the story, warts and all,” Davis said. “If Clearly Canadian had imploded, wed have covered it.”

The NBC special, “Teleflora Presents Americas Favorite Mom,” will be a kinder, gentler show, seeking entries from viewers in categories like single mothers, working mothers and “unconventional” mothers. A Web site, americasfavoritemom.com, has been set up to accept nominations; it can also be reached through teleflora.com.

The increasing interest among advertisers in branded entertainment is easily explained, said Lynda Resnick, chairwoman at Teleflora.

“People are watching television; theyre just not watching commercials,” she said. “That is the distinction.”

But as a sponsor of branded entertainment, “you have to be integrated into the content, not added on,” Resnick said, because no one wants to watch “a talking head at the end of a show.”

“And I dont want to bore people,” she added, so the show has to be entertaining enough to avoid playing like a program-length commercial.

The producer of the special, Reveille, is also creating reality series for NBC including “American Gladiators” and “The Biggest Loser.” Both have branded-entertainment deals with marketers like Subway restaurants, 24 Hour Fitness and Toyota.

BERLIN (Thomson Financial) - Belgian finance minister Didier Reynders was unconcerned about the recent appreciation of the euro towards record highs, saying that a strong euro is in the interests of Europe and that the current strength of the euro reflects a strong economy.

When questioned on yesterday’s confirmation by European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet that a strong dollar is in the interests of the US, Reyners said: “Yes of course, and the same is true for Europe”.

Although he noted that there was a need to monitor the exchange rate, he said it follows that since the euro zone economy is strong the currency will be strong too.

“If you have a strong currency it reflects a strong economy … A strong euro and a strong economy, that’s the best scenario,” he said.

He added that the euro zone now has more “capacity to resist external shocks” and its economy is better placed to cope with a stronger currency.

Speaking on the sidelines of the two-day informal meeting of European finance ministers and central bankers here

jessica.mortimer@thomson.com

jkm

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