Fox Resigns as Editor, Chief of Investor’s Daily

Stephen P. Fox has resigned as editor, president and chief executive of Investor’s Daily, the Los Angeles-based business newspaper has confirmed.

Hamid Fereydouni, former circulation director, has taken over as president, while Wesley F. Mann, former managing editor, takes over as editor. The position of chief executive has been left open.

Fox, 43, a former Associated Press business reporter who became editor of Investor’s Daily shortly after the paper started in 1984, resigned to join CMR Group, a Woodland Hills consulting firm specializing in news media relations and crisis communications, Mann said. Several current and former staff members said they were unaware of any friction between Fox and William J. O’Neil, the paper’s strong-willed chairman and founder, that may have led to the resignation.

Mann, 41, had served as editor from September, 1987, to last April, while Fox took a leave of absence to go on a sailing cruise. The paper made several key format changes while Fox was gone. Fox could not be reached for comment.

Fox’s resignation comes as Investor’s Daily continues to lose money and suffer from low morale and high employee turnover, current and former staff members say.

The newspaper, which claims to have daily nationwide circulation of 108,000, also faces an uphill battle in building circulation because of reduced investor interest in stocks following the October, 1987, crash. Its chief rival, the Wall Street Journal, in recent months has bolstered its stock and bond charts and tables in a bid to match some of the detail Investor’s Daily provides.

Investor’s Daily is a unit of William O’Neil & Co., an investment research firm.