The new pan-European equity fund will be run by Fehim Sever, a former research analyst who has been with Fidelity for almost seven years and has 10 years industry experience.
Portfolio manager Mr Sever will exploit exceptional mis-valuations of companies for Fidelity Funds European Special Situations Fund, an unconstrained fund with a broad remit and an expected tracking error of between 8% and 12%. Mr Sever intends to run a high conviction, concentrated portfolio of between 35 and 50 holdings, using a blend of thematic and bottom up stock picking opportunities. He will look for companies where he believes the potential for structural growth or for change are underestimated or where there is an anomaly in valuation multiples or methodology.
FF European Special Situations is at the upper end of the risk spectrum in the Fidelity range of European equity funds. Its closest comparable fund is European Aggressive, another unconstrained and concentrated fund.
Michael Jones, head of financial institutions at Fidelity International, said: Fehim was one of our highest rated analysts and now has a proven record as a portfolio manager, achieving magnificent performance in 2007. We believe the European Special Situations Fund has the fund manager, remit and flexibility to be a top-performing fund in the years ahead, exploiting the opportunities in developed European markets as well as the extraordinary demographic and economic developments in newer European and near-European markets.