WASHINGTON — Abigail P. Johnson, the billionaire president and CEO of Fidelity Investments, epitomizes the quiet, old-money side of the Boston mutual fund world. With her understated, publicity-shy manner, messy Washington politics would not seem to be her thing.
But when she arrived at the soaring glass lobby of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Johnson was showing another facet of the Fidelity image: its political power, which flows from the forceful personality of her father, Fidelity chairman Edward “Ned’’ C. Johnson 3d, and the financial might of her vast enterprise.
Her trip to meet with the SEC chief in June 2012 was part of an epic and unusually harsh lobbying battle waged by Fidelity and a handful of allies in the mutual fund industry. Their mission: stop the Obama administration’s move in the aftermath of the financial crisis to rein in a huge and highly profitable part of their business, money market funds.
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