FMR LLC (Fidelity Management and Research) or Fidelity Investments is an American multinational financial services corporation. It is one of the largest mutual fund and financial services groups in the world. It was founded in 1946 and serves North American investors.Fidelity Ventures is its venture capital arm. Fidelity International Limited (FIL), was an international affiliate founded in 1969, serving most countries in the rest of the world. In September 2011, FIL was rebranded as 'Fidelity Worldwide Investment'
Fidelity Investments manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice services, as well as providing discount brokerage services, retirement services, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, life insurance and a number of other services.
Fidelity is a privately held company founded by Edward C. Johnson II in 1946, which is owned by employees and the Johnson family. Fidelity Management & Research Company, the US investment management division of Fidelity Investments, acts as the investment adviser to Fidelity's family of mutual funds. FMR Co has three fund divisions: Equity (headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts), High-Income (Boston) and Fixed-Income (Merrimack, New Hampshire). The company's subsidiaries serve as distributors and transfer agents to the entire Fidelity fund family.
FMR serves more than 20 million investors through individual and institutional accounts, with more than 500 different funds, and is one of the largest US mutual fund companies with nearly $3.3 trillion in assets under administration and $1.5 trillion of assets under management as of September 30, 2010. Fidelity Investment Managers managed over $230 billion of international assets as of September 30, 2010.
The company's largest equity mutual fund is Contrafund, which has more than $68 billion in assets as of September 30, 2010, making it the largest single-manager fund in the US. The current manager of Contrafund is Will Danoff. Magellan Fund is another large equity fund, over $20 billion in assets as of September 30, 2010. Its current manager is Jeffrey S. Feingold, who previously managed, and will continue to manage, the Fidelity Trend Fund. The Magellan Fund was for many years the largest in the United States. It was run by Ned Johnson (May 2, 1963 to Dec. 31, 1971) and Peter Lynch (May 31, 1977 to May 31, 1990).
Fidelity Investments also operates a major online discount brokerage and has investor centers in over 140 locations throughout the US.
Through its subsidiary, National Financial Services LLC, Fidelity Investments provides a number of services to its correspondent broker-dealers, institutional investment firms and registered investment advisors including brokerage clearing, back office support and a suite of software products for financial services firms. National Financial custodied over $443 billion in assets, in 4.3 million accounts as of September 30, 2010.
In November 2011, Fidelity Investments and Verizon Communications Inc announced a joint project to provide better instant access for subscribers to the Fidelity Market Monitor Application.
The founding Johnson family owns about half of Fidelity. Edward "Ned" C. Johnson 3rd is chairman of the group. His daughter, Abigail Johnson, was once the largest single shareholder with about 25%, but in October 2005, it was reported that she had sold a "significant" portion of her shares to family trusts, and that there are doubts as to whether she is still in line to succeed her father.
The FMR mutual funds are organized as Massachusetts business trusts tied to the lifetime of the Johnsons. Some of Fidelity's best known fund managers also own a share in the company, most notably Peter Lynch.
Revenue in 2003 were US$9.2 billion, followed by US$10.5 billion in 2004. As of 2007, Fidelity had 47,000 employees. As of July 29, 2009, the company employs 38,000 people.
FMR's corporate headquarters are located in Boston, Massachusetts, with the largest U.S. operations located in Marlborough, Massachusetts; Merrimack, New Hampshire; Smithfield, Rhode Island; Westlake, Texas; Covington, Kentucky; Durham, North Carolina; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Cincinnati, Ohio; Salt Lake City, Utah; Jacksonville, Florida; and American Fork, Utah. It also has offices in Canada in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. Fidelity Management and Research in 2009 opened offices in both Hong Kong and Tokyo, Japan to add great capabilities to its small cap research.
In 2004, Fidelity established its first presence in India by opening an office in Mumbai. It has a very strong presence in India with over 4,000 employees there. Its second largest software development facility (after the United States) is in Bangalore and Chennai.
Fidelity Investments Ireland was established in 1996 as the European offshore development centre for Fidelity Investments and now employs over 300 people with offices in Dublin and Galway. Fidelity has a program for new IT graduates located in the Galway office in Ireland.
Fidelity also has a presence in Europe with offices in France in Paris & Marseilles and countries like Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spainand Switzerland and London, UK for its HR Solution business HR Access.
FIL's offices include asset management companies in 10 locations: London, Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mumbai,Seoul, Singapore and Sydney, and an extensive network of offices in 23 countries, employing more than 4,000 people.