effective October 1.
The fund's new manager will be Alberto Chiandetti, who Fidelity says has worked closely with Frontini since May 2008. Chiandetti has never run a fund before: he spent 7.5 years as an equity research analyst at Euromobiliare SIM, focusing on the media, building materials, and transport sectors, and has been with Fidelity as an analyst since 2006. At Fidelity, he has focused primarily on small- and mid-cap Italian stocks. Fidelity Funds - Italy is mid-cap oriented.
Frontini had delivered strong results at Fidelity Funds - Italy during his tenure, winning Morningstar Italy's Best Italian Equity fund award in for his work there through December 2006. However, Frontini is struggling at the much larger European Aggressive offering thus far in 2008. That fund's A Euro shares are down 18.2% for the year to date through 3 September, putting them in the bottom one percent of the Morningstar Europe Large-Cap Blend category for the period. The fund is heavily exposed to materials issues, and is highly concentrated, with more than 9% of assets in Israel Chemical, a mid-cap fertiliser company, and 58% of equities in Industrial Materials. The materials bet has helped send the fund to a 24.5% loss over the past three months as investors have become nervous about the impact of a slowing global economy on demand.
