BCom grad named Mutual Fund Manager of the Year

Maxime Lemieux, BCom'96, is the winner of MarketWatch's Mutual Fund Manager of the Year award for 2007. He beat out almost 2,400 U.S., global and international stock-fund managers who were judged on the performance, expenses and tax efficiency of their portfolios. "I like to protect my downside," Lemieux said. "I care about risk."

Lemieux, 34, joined Fidelity in Montreal in 1996 after graduating from McGill University. Running a Fidelity fund was, in fact, a longstanding ambition for the Quebec City native, who bought his first stock when he was 11 years old. He is currently based at the fund's Boston headquarters.

Under Lemieux's direction, Fidelity Canada's shares rose 35% last year, trouncing its international-multicap-core category average by almost 23 percentage points and landing in the top 2% of its peers. The $4.6-billion fund owned 90 stocks at the end of 2007, with about 39% of assets invested in its 10 largest holdings.