More Than 4000 flock to www.fidelitygcc.com In First Fortnight of Fidelity Investments Gulf Online Competition

Dubai, May 2^nd 2001: Fidelity Investments, the world’s largest independent fund management organisation, has received over 4,000 hits to its www.fidelitygcc.com website – which offers Gulf residents the opportunity to win one of three $2,500-investment prizes of their choice in the Fidelity Funds SICAV range— in the first two weeks since the launch of its first internet competition in the Gulf.

The month-long competition, designed exclusively for Gulf investors and accessible in both English and Arabic, is open to residents of the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain. To enter, participants need to correctly answer three multiple-choice questions by logging on to www.fidelitygcc.com, which links to the main Fidelity website and the first section of a planned Fidelity Arabic website. 

“Our online competition has proved to be an excellent success and we are happy to see that so many Gulf investors want to learn more about Fidelity Investments and are utilizing the Internet to enter the competition(is ,” said Sian Parry, Executive Director, International Business Development, and Fidelity Investments.

More than 600 visitors to the site, launched on April 9, have completed competition entries, which will continue to be accepted until May 8 when the three winners will be drawn.

“Although we are only mid-way through the competition, our figures reveal that a large number of the entries are in Arabic. This has encouraged us to accelerate development of a fully integrated bi-lingual website for the whole of the Middle East,” said Parry.

The complete version of the Fidelity Investments Arabic website, to be launched later this year, will provide a comprehensive guide to the history and performance of the Fidelity Investments products distributed in the Middle East.

Fidelity offers Gulf investors the entire Fidelity Funds SICAV range of over 50 sub-funds through their network of alliance partners in the region. These consist of global, regional, sector and country specific equity funds, and a range of bond, cash and portfolio management products.

Fidelity International, which trades under the name Fidelity Investments, serves the major markets of the world by providing investment products and services to individuals and institutional investors outside the US. Together with Fidelity Management and Research Co. of Boston, USA, Fidelity is the largest independent fund management organisation in the world, with over US$1 trillion of assets under management. *

Investors in the Middle East can buy the Fidelity Funds SICAV range through one of Fidelity’s alliance partners or a Fidelity approved Independent Financial Advisor ( IFA).

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*Assets as at 31/12/2000 stood at US$1,013.7 billion, including those of FMR Corp, a US company and affiliate and its subsidiaries.

For more information please contact:

Jean Akouri/Camilla D’Abo                                              Jo Roddan

ASDA’A Public Relations                                                  Fidelity Investments

Busron-Marsteller Middle East affiliate                        United Kingdom                                                 

Dubai, UAE                                                                            Tel: +44 1737 837848                                                       

Tel: +971-4-3344550. Fax: +971-4-3344556                                e-mail:mailto:Joanne.Roddan@uk.fid-intl.com                                   

e-mail: C.dabo@asdaa.com                                           

Fidelity Funds SICAV is an open-ended investment company established in Luxembourg with different classes of shares (“funds”). Fidelity Funds is recognised under section 86 of the Financial Services Act 1986 and investors should note that the holdings of shares in the funds will not be covered by the provisions of the FSA investors compensation scheme, nor by any similar scheme in Luxembourg. Issued by Fidelity Investments International

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