Overview

Fidelity Investments, formerly known as Fidelity Management & Research (FMR), is an American financial services company. The company is one of the largest asset managers in the world, with $7.8 trillion in assets under management, and $19.9 trillion in assets under administration, as of June 2026^([update]).^([needs update?])

Fidelity operates a brokerage firm; manages mutual funds and exchange-traded funds; offers wealth management; and provides fund distribution, retirement services, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance. Fidelity also offers cryptocurrency investing and has its own stablecoin, the Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD) on the Ethereum network. It also offers a donor-advised fund, Fidelity Charitable, for clients seeking to donate securities.

It processes 5.7 million daily average trades and is one of the largest providers of 401(k) plans and manages employee benefit programs for more than 28,800 businesses. It also offers brokerage clearing software products for financial services firms.

Abigail Johnson, granddaughter of founder Edward C. Johnson II, and her family and their affiliates own a roughly 40% interest in the company. The remainder is owned by current and former executives.

History

The Fidelity Fund incorporated in Massachusetts on May 1, 1930, with Edward C. Johnson II serving as president. The corporate structure changed in 1946 and became known as Fidelity Management & Research (FMR).

In 1969, the company formed Fidelity International (FIL) to serve non-U.S. markets and subsequently spun it off in 1980 into an independent entity owned by its employees.

In 1982, the company began offering 401(k) products, followed by computerized stock trading offerings in 1984.

Investments on behalf of management

The company also makes investments on its own account for the benefit of the founding family and its executives. Investments have included Seaport Center and 2.5 million square feet of office space in Boston; COLT Telecom Group; MetroRed; Community Newspaper Company; Lanoga; Hope Lumber; ProBuild; and Boston Coach. In 2016, an investigation by Reuters showed that Fidelity executives made investments in shares at a fraction of the price later paid by funds managed by Fidelity Investments; examples included buying shares in Alibaba Group for 7 cents each.

Later purchases of shares by funds managed by Fidelity was seen as propping up the values of the shares owned by the founders, a possible conflict of interest.

Document retention fines

In February 2007, the NASD, a division of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, fined four FMR-affiliated broker-dealers $3.75 million for alleged registration, supervision and e-mail retention violations. The broker-dealers settled without admitting or denying the charges.

In 2004, Fidelity Brokerage paid $2 million to settle charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that employees altered and destroyed documents in 21 of its 88 branch offices between January 2001 and July 2002. Fidelity has internal inspections every year to make sure it is complying with federal regulations.

Management was accused of pressuring branch employees to have perfect inspections and gave notice of the inspections and that at least 62 employees destroyed or altered potentially improper documents maintained at branch offices including new account applications, letters of authorization and variable annuity forms.

Misrepresentations

In May 2007, NASD fined two Fidelity broker-dealers $400,000 for preparing and distributing misleading sales literature promoting Fidelity's Destiny I and II Systematic Investment Plans, which were sold primarily to U.S. military personnel. As part of the settlement, the FMR affiliates were required to notify Destiny Plan holders that additional shares of the underlying fund can be purchased without paying additional sales charges.