A QUIET PASSION FOR PERFORMANCE

By Sam Allis/Boston

What makes Ned Johnson rare is that like Bill Gates, he is both a nerd and a predator. He adores technology and understands it as few ceos do. He is also an unalloyed capitalist who pursues market share relentlessly. Johnson's double vision makes him a formidable competitor and one of those rare sons who increase exponentially the patrimonies of their fathers.

Edward Crosby Johnson 3d is at once shy and effusive. He talks volubly with strangers and laughs a lot, but his bonhomie seems to come with effort. He is a private man who owns a private company. He dismisses as "mythology" the reputation that he and Fidelity have for Vatican-like secrecy. Yet when asked to describe himself, he gazes into his lap and says, "I'll take a bye."

Johnson, 66, doesn't take a bye when it comes to getting things done. He loves to take a thought into production. Witness the donor-directed charitable trust he created three years ago, the first of its kind in the country. Philanthropy, in fact, is a passion with him. In the past 30 years, two Fidelity foundations have given over $50 million to 3,000 nonprofit organizations. A third foundation, controlled more closely by the Johnson family, has helped everything from Planned Parenthood to the Buddhist Churches of America, the latter reflecting Johnson's interest in Eastern philosophy.

When Johnson talks about his approach to business, he summons images of Teddy Roosevelt, the patrician paragon of "the strenuous life." As he explains it, in the languorous vowels of a Boston Brahmin, "This comes from a belief that making things happen is what was given to me through my genes. That's in the genes."

Johnson abhors ostentation. Not surprisingly, Fidelity has no corporate jet or limousine. No Fidelity tower looms over the Boston skyline. He walks to work. Like all true Yankees, he has a visceral hatred of waste. Beneath his gentility is a steely confidence tempered by years of business combat. He has learned to trust his instincts. He loves to tack against conventional wisdom, as he did when he pioneered check-writing privileges for money-market funds.

"My father is a contrarian," says his daughter Abigail, 34, a Fidelity portfolio manager whom many expect to succeed Johnson. Abigail's younger brother, Edward Crosby Johnson 4th, 31, works for Fidelity Properties, the company's real estate arm.

Fidelity is in Abigail's blood. As a youngster, she visited the trading floor with Johnson. During college summers, she worked in the old wire room taking trading orders. Later she returned for office Christmas parties to maintain her friendships.

Since joining the company eight years ago, she has followed the traditional path from analyst to fund manager. Today she manages the Trend Fund, the same one her father ran after he joined the company in 1957. (The fund's return is 8.7% so far this year.) Predictably, she is as circumspect about her future as is Johnson. "I have no role that has been predetermined," she says.

Johnson was not sure he was making the right decision when he came to Fidelity. He remembered that his paternal grandfather had been miserable running the family dry-goods business out of a sense of obligation when he really wanted to be a chemist. But as soon as Johnson started managing money, the doubts disappeared. "It was absolutely fascinating," he recalls. And rewarding. He holds the all-time record for annual return on investment by a Fidelity fund manager: 116% for running Magellan in 1965.

--By Sam Allis/Boston