Fidelity Investments expands defined benefit platform

With defined benefit plans and their sponsors facing continued pressures and uncertainty, Fidelity Investments today announced an expansion of its Fidelity Pension AdvantageSM program that delivers defined benefit plan sponsors increased investment flexibility and greater access to and control of plan data to help them identify and mitigate financial and fiduciary risks.

Fidelity has doubled the number of institutional investment managers and strategies available on the platform, which are screened and recommended by independent consultant Rocaton Investment Advisors, LLC, bringing the total to 14 and 43, respectively. New investment strategies are being offered by the following managers: Barclays Global Investors, N.A.; Diversified Global Asset Management Corporation; Fidelity Investments, First State International Limited; Freeman Associates Investment Management LLC; Goldman Sachs Asset Management; Mazama Capital Management, Inc.; and Franklin Templeton Institutional.

Fidelity is also introducing Fidelity Pension Advantage NetLink, a new client website and technology that offer a customized and integrated view of critical investment and pension plan data that models values into future plan years and is updated monthly.

"Our expanded investment management platform reflects our focus on offering clients a well diversified set of investment solutions that enables plan sponsors to address the plan’s specific needs," said Drew E. Lawton, president and chief executive officer of Fidelity Management Trust Company. "Working with our team of professionals, clients can readily develop an investment portfolio customized to their plan’s financial condition based on liability sensitive portfolio management strategies, whether their plan is under or over funded, frozen, or closed."

Fidelity Pension Advantage NetLink, built upon Fidelity Management Trust Company’s award winning* secure web site for institutional clients, helps defined benefit plan sponsors on the Fidelity Pension Advantage platform stay fully informed about their plan’s investment and actuarial data by allowing them to monitor current investment performance, track and budget required minimum contributions and Financial Accounting Standard (FAS) expenses, and model and analyze the impact of changes in investment performance or contributions on pension liabilities and corporate financials.

According to Lawton, Fidelity Pension Advantage NetLink brings a new dimension of control to finance executives, actuaries, auditors, treasurers and others responsible for the success of an organization’s pension plan and financial operations. Its online technology helps measure, monitor, and manage pension liabilities and their impact on the financial condition of the organization sponsoring the plan.

"We developed it based on client feedback and in anticipation of potential pension accounting and funding rule changes," said Lawton. "Integrating actuarial and investment analysis of plan assets and liabilities will make managing the risks of running a pension plan easier at a time when rule changes could make the task more challenging than ever before. Together, these product enhancements make Fidelity Pension Advantage an even more effective strategy for plan sponsors addressing the challenges threatening this critically important component of our nation’s retirement system."

Key features of Fidelity Pension Advantage NetLink include:

Plan Financials At-A-Glance – Offers a comprehensive view of total plan assets, portfolio performance, expenses, and contribution requirements. Updated monthly, clients access current asset allocations versus investment policy targets with market values by investment strategy and asset class as well as the current and projected future liability for the plan. Clients can also view multiple plans in aggregate.

Planning – In addition to detailed views of current and projected plan financials, clients can access total portfolio and underlying investment performance against benchmarks, and analyze how well portfolio performance is offsetting the plan’s projected liabilities. The site uses integrated data from the client’s plan to calculate the financial impact of potential plan changes through extensive scenario modeling capabilities. In addition, scenario modeling tools available through NetLink enable plan sponsors to assess the impact on a pension plan and an organizations financial health that might result from changes in such variables as asset allocation, interest rates, plan contribution amounts and investment returns.

Reporting – Clients can access on an ad-hoc basis current and archived asset and liability studies, quarterly investment reviews, and accounting reports for their plan that are print ready.

News and Research – The site features a wealth of information to help plan sponsors stay up-to-date and manage plan and fiduciary responsibilities and risks, including: a calendar tracking plan filings, contribution dates and other events; timely updates on regulatory and legislative developments; a complete archive of topical Fidelity whitepapers, newsletters and the firm’s Viewpoint publication; as well as links to Rocaton’s investment product profiles and quantitative/qualitative analysis on the platform’s managers and investment products.

For more information on managing risk and volatility in defined benefit programs, plan sponsors can contact 617-392-2419 to speak with a Fidelity Pension Advantage specialist.

About Rocaton Investment Advisors

Rocaton Investment Advisors, LLC, is a leading independent investment consultant who has applied its proprietary due diligence process to develop a recommended list of products to include on the Fidelity Pension Advantage Platform. Currently, Rocaton has approximately $225 billion in assets under advisement, representing 50 clients. Rocaton’s twelve manager research professionals average 15 years of industry experience. As part of its ongoing qualitative and quantitative due diligence process, Rocaton conducts more than 1300 investment manager meetings annually.

About Fidelity Management Trust Company

Fidelity Management Trust Company manages assets for approximately 550 institutional clients worldwide, including corporate and public retirement funds, endowments, foundations and other institutional investors. The company offers institutional asset management for active and risk-controlled equity, fixed-income, international equity, real estate and alternative disciplines such as market neutral. As of March 31, 2006, the company’s total assets under management were $113 billion.

About Fidelity Investments

Fidelity Investments is one of the world's largest providers of financial services, with custodied assets of $2.6 trillion, including managed assets of $1.2 trillion as of March 31, 2006. Fidelity offers investment management, retirement planning, brokerage, and human resources and benefits outsourcing services to more than 21 million individuals and institutions as well as through 5,500 financial intermediary firms. The firm is the largest mutual fund company in the United States, the No. 1 provider of workplace retirement savings plans, one of the largest mutual fund supermarkets and a leading online brokerage firm. For more information about Fidelity Investments, visit www.Fidelity.com.

* In April, 2006, kasina, a management consulting firm serving financial services companies, evaluated the client websites of 50 institutional investment management firms with at least $30 billion in assets under management and, using a variety of quantitative and qualitative factors, narrowed the list to the 10 best including Fidelity Management Trust Company.