SMITHFIELD, RI, June 29, 2009 - Pyramis Global Advisors today announced that its new fixed-income long credit strategy has received funding and commitments from institutional investors totaling nearly $1 billion since it opened in March. The new strategy is designed to meet the specific and evolving needs of pension investors, and expands the firm's suite of liability driven investing (LDI) solutions, which also includes a long government/credit bond strategy among other custom duration fixed-income solutions.

"The strong interest we've seen from our institutional clients in our new long-bond strategy is indicative of the importance of LDI solutions in the marketplace," said Michael Senoski, LDI investment director, Pyramis Global Advisors. "The strategy is designed to reduce tracking error between plan asset and liability returns and to lower plan funding level volatility by focusing on high-quality corporate bonds, the same securities that plan sponsors are required to use to calculate liability valuations."

A recent Pyramis Pulse survey of large U.S. corporate and public defined benefit (DB) plan sponsors showed that historically wide credit spreads have sparked corporate plan sponsor interest in credit-based fixed-income strategies in order to better manage the risk that changing credit spreads can have on the valuation of liabilities. Among the 27% of corporate plans using LDI strategies, nearly half (46%) are implementing LDI by extending duration of existing fixed-income assets and 13% said they are using credit-based fixed-income strategies, such as corporate bonds.

"The potential benefits of the recent surge in Treasury bond yields, in terms of higher pension discount rates and lower liabilities, have been negated by an even more significant decline in credit spreads, resulting in a net decrease in discount rates and increase in liabilities", said Senoski. "Recent credit spread volatility highlights the impact of spreads on pension liabilities and underscores the strategic value of credit-based fixed-income strategies in managing funding level volatility."

According to Daniel Tremblay, institutional portfolio manager in the Fixed-Income Division: "By emphasizing high-quality investment grade bonds, the new Pyramis strategy seeks to achieve a high correlation to the performance of the securities used in discounting pension liabilities."

For diversification and total return benefits, the strategy allows up to a 25% allocation to BBB-rated bonds. The long corporate bond strategy is typically benchmarked to the Barclays Long Corporate Bond A or Better Index, however, Pyramis also manages the strategy against various long duration credit indices and is willing to customize it based on client needs. "LDI is not a one size fits all strategy," said Tremblay.

The management of the long corporate bond strategy is based upon the same research-intensive approach that supports the entire Pyramis and Fidelity fixed-income investment platform. As of March 31, 2009, Fidelity managed nearly $218 billion in fixed-income assets including $45 billion in assets managed by Pyramis for institutional clients around the world. With more than 87 dedicated fixed-income credit analysts and 387 equity analysts around the globe, Pyramis' and Fidelity's credit-based investment strategies are driven by a deep and broad analysis of company fundamentals and downside risk assessment while maintaining a high degree of selectivity.

About Pyramis Global Advisors

Pyramis Global Advisors, a unit of Fidelity Investments, is an investment management firm focused exclusively on serving institutional investors including corporate and public retirement funds, endowments, foundations, other institutions, as well as non-U.S. investors. Pyramis offers active and risk-controlled domestic equity, international equity, fixed-income, high-yield, real estate debt and REIT strategies, and alternative strategies including equity market neutral and 130/30 disciplines. As of March 31, 2009, assets under management totaled approximately $113 billion.

Pyramis Global Advisors
900 Salem Street, Smithfield, Rhode Island 02917

The business unit of Pyramis Global Advisors (Pyramis) consists of: Pyramis Global Advisors Holdings Corp., a Delaware corporation; Pyramis Global Advisors Trust Company, a New Hampshire limited purpose trust company (PGATC); Pyramis Global Advisors, LLC, a U.S. registered investment adviser (PGA LLC); Pyramis Canada ULC, an Ontario registered investment adviser; Pyramis Global Advisors (UK) Limited, a U.K. research provider; Pyramis Global Advisors (Hong Kong) Limited, a Hong Kong registered investment adviser (Pyramis-HK); Pyramis Distributors Corporation LLC, a U.S. registered broker-dealer; and Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, an Alberta corporation (FIC). Investment services are provided by PGATC, PGA LLC, Pyramis Canada ULC and/or Pyramis-HK.

###