Fidelity Allied with Lehman On Investment Product Sales

Fidelity Investments has entered an alliance with Lehman Brothers Inc. to give some of Fidelity's customers access to initial public offerings of stocks and bonds that are lead-managed by the Wall Street investment bank.

Fidelity announced a deal Monday that would also give its retail customers, retirement-product clients, and those who buy its products through brokers access to other Lehman stock and bond products, including secondary offerings, as well as equity and debt research.

The IPO business will be open to clients who have at least $500,000 invested with Fidelity or who are in the fund company's other preferred customer categories.

"We believe that this arrangement will provide another strong incentive for customers to consolidate their investments with Fidelity," Edward C. Johnson 3d, the Boston fund company's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

The products and research will be rolled out over three to six weeks, said Robert Mazzarella, president of Fidelity's retail brokerage unit.

The alliance calls for Lehman to become the principal source for acquisitions by Fidelity of equity and debt, new-issue products, secondary products, and research, Fidelity said.

Fidelity is to be Lehman's main distribution channel for new-issue products to retail brokerage customers outside Lehman's own network of high-net-worth retail brokers. Lehman is the seventh-largest underwriter of IPOs so far this year, having been lead manager of $1.2 billion of deals.

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