With no one looking, Fidelity chief moves family firm, riches: In New Hampshire we trust

The Boston Herald reports:

A clandestine company that manages billions for Fidelity Investments chief Ned Johnson and his family has quietly pulled up stakes from Boston’s Financial District, leaving the Bay State behind for New Hampshire and its beneficial trust and tax laws, the Herald has learned.

Crosby Advisors’ relocation of more than 100 workers to new offices in Salem, N.H., last fall — marking a major migration of Boston wealth over the border — went virtually unnoticed except among informed company insiders.

The move also went completely unmentioned amid all the hand-wringing after Fidelity announced last month that it would close its Marlboro campus and send most of those 1,100 jobs to its offices in Merrimack, N.H., and Smithfield, R.I.
The Crosby operation — which a source said shipped out in October from Fidelity headquarters at 82 Devonshire St. — includes a core group of investment professionals who represent the Johnson “family office.” Ned, whose middle name is Crosby, and daughter Abigail Johnson, a Fidelity president, control assets worth a combined $18.4 billion, according to Forbes’ latest estimate.

“They moved everything except a few people,” said a former Crosby worker who requested anonymity

The Johnson family doesn't want to pay Massachusetts style taxes. Defenders of the welfare state claim high taxes don't alter behavior. Got that?