Fidelity International funds now available through ADCB

29th April 2007: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) and Fidelity International, one of the world's leading investment management and services houses, have today announced the launch of the 'Investor Series', a high level investment education programme for ADCB's customers.  ADCB has also announced that it now offers a range of Fidelity funds for its investors.  

Ahmed Barakat - Head of Wealth Management Products of ADCB - says "Fidelity is an internationally leading group - it has very strong performing products and also shares a similar philosophy of planning and-long term money management. In addition, Fidelity always strives to act in the best interest of investors so it seemed natural that we should create this initiative with the group".

Cormac Sheedy - Fidelity Director of Sales in the Middle East - added "our investment expertise is second to none, we have over 800 investment professionals who cover over 95% of the world's stock markets and their sole focus is to ensure we uncover the best investment opportunities for clients' portfolios." [1]

Branded "Al Murshid", meaning the guidance in Arabic, the Investor Series has a range of modules aimed at improving investor knowledge within the U.A.E.  Cormac Sheedy, Director of Sales - Middle East says "The aim of the series is simple - demystification of the world of investment and improvements in investor knowledge will lead to better informed customers who in turn are able to make better investment decisions."  The "Al Murshid" series has a number of modules that are designed to be user friendly and beneficial to any investor.  They include risk, diversification, timing the markets and the benefits of investing systematically.  A summary of the first modules are:

  • Risk - when it comes to investing risk presents opportunities and being too cautious could reduce long term returns.  It goes on to point out the factors which investors should take into account to ascertain how much risk they should take-on.

  • Diversification - picking winners is difficult and therefore it's important to ensure that a portfolio has appropriate exposure to a range of sectors and countries.  While many investors have a preference for holding equities in their home market, it's important that they don't miss out on opportunities in other markets.  For example, over the last 12 months investors would have benefited strongly had they had exposure to China, India and Global Property Securities with these markets returning 83%, 51% and 42% respectively during 2006[2]. 

  • Time not timing - trying to time the market is an attractive idea, however comes with risks and in practice is rarely successful - it looks at alternative strategies to benefit from market gains.

  • Investing systematically - by investing on a regular basis investors can take advantage of market ups and downs and benefit from cost averaging.

The investor series will be available via adcb.com, ADCB branches as well as ADCB Excellency Centers.

Fidelity International Limited ("FIL") and its subsidiary companies serve the major markets of the world by providing investment products and services to individuals and institutional investors outside the US. The FIL Organisation manages over $279 billion of assets[3].

-Ends-

Notes to Editors
Any opinions expressed are made at the time of writing and can be subject to change without notification. Past performance is not a guide to future returns. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up.

For further Information:
John Hobday / Manash Bhuyan
FD
+971 4 332 8832

© Press Release 2007