FOR EXTERNAL POSTING IN MUTUAL FUND SECTION OF FIDELITY.COM
Board of Trustees of the Fidelity Funds to Create Two Separate Boards
February 2008
Fidelity's mutual fund business and the broader mutual fund marketplace continue to expand and evolve. As a result, the Board of Trustees of the Fidelity Funds, together with Fidelity Management & Research Company (FMR), have been considering ways to structure the Board for each Fidelity fund in order to ensure that Fidelity's mutual fund shareholders continue to be well served by Trustees in the years ahead. Historically, the Board of each Fidelity fund has consisted of the same group of individual Trustees who serve as Trustees for all other Fidelity funds. In effect, the Fidelity funds have been overseen by a single Board of Trustees.
The Trustees of the Fidelity Funds-- with the support of FMR -- have made a decision to reorganize themselves into two separate groups and thereby create two Boards. One Board will oversee Fidelity's equity and high-income funds, while the second Board will oversee Fidelity's investment-grade bond, money market, and asset allocation funds. The creation of separate Boards will allow Trustees to continue to focus most effectively on the unique needs of each group of funds in the years ahead.
The Board made this decision in order to plan for the future. The decision was based on three specific factors:
The continued diversification of Fidelity's mutual fund business into new asset classes and product types.
The increasing complexity of the securities marketplace in terms of the investment strategies available to Fidelity's mutual funds.
The expectation by the Board of Trustees that Fidelity's mutual fund business will continue to expand over the coming five to 10 years as a result of prevailing demographic and business trends.
The Board of Trustees fully expects that the environment of strong governance of the funds and protection of the interests of fund shareholders will continue under this new structure of two Boards of Trustees, in partnership with Fidelity as the funds' investment adviser.
By way of background, the Board of Trustees is responsible for governing the funds and protecting the interests of shareholders. They are elected by fund shareholders. Trustees on both Boards will be experienced executives who meet throughout the year to oversee the funds' activities, review contractual arrangements with companies that provide services to the funds, and review fund performance. Board members include independent Trustees, or those with no affiliation to Fidelity, and interested Trustees, or those who are employed by Fidelity. A significant majority of the Board is independent. Each of the new Boards is expected to have 75 percent or more independent Trustees.
The process of creating two Boards from the current single Board will take several months since meetings of fund shareholders must be convened to elect Trustees. We anticipate that the fund shareholder meetings at which these items are presented can be completed by mid-summer of 2008. More detailed information will be included in the individual fund proxies that will be mailed to shareholders of affected funds in the coming months.
# # #
Please read the proxy statement when it becomes available because it contains important information. The preliminary and definitive proxy statements can be accessed free of charge on www.sec.gov.
Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Company, Inc., 82 Devonshire Street, Boston, MA 02109
Fidelity Distributors Corporation, 82 Devonshire Street, Boston, MA 02109
Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC, 100 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02110
National Financial Services, LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC, 200 Liberty Street, NY4F, New York, NY 10281
482023.1.0