13/02/2008

Standard Life Investments forges links with Fidelity's FundsNetwork™ in Germany

Standard Life Investments (SLI), the global fund manager, today announced that six funds from its Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV fund range (see notes to editors) have been added to Fidelity’s FundsNetwork™ platform in Germany.

The funds include: the Global REIT Focus Fund, the Global Equity Fund, the China Equity Fund, the Eurozone Equity Fund, the European Corporate Bond Fund and the European High Yield Bond Fund. All six funds are available to German investors with immediate affect.

In May last year, SLI announced that it had received public distribution status through BaFin in Germany for its Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV fund range, allowing German investors access to a range of strongly performing funds.

Heiko Dahse, Investment Director – European Business Development, SLI, said:

"Given that our SICAV range received public distribution status only last May, I’m delighted that six of these funds are now available to German investors through Fidelity’s FundsNetwork™ platform. Despite representing only a third of our entire SICAV range, these six funds demonstrate the breadth of our product offering and the scope of our investment expertise. More importantly, they will provide German investors with a means of diversifying their existing portfolio – whether it is in equities, bonds or real estate."

"The agreement with Fidelity is very much in line with our focus on developing strong strategic alliances with leading players in Germany and across Europe. This is an approach which has already borne fruit with distribution agreements with Merrant in Sweden and Aktia in Finland. We’re confident that other such partnerships can be formed in 2008."

In October 2007, SLI announced a partnership agreement with Merrant, the Swedish multi-manager company, which saw SLI’s China Equity Fund (SICAV) forming part of five Merrant multi-manager funds - Kina, BRIC, Asien, Emerging Markets and Global. SLI’s India Equity Fund (SICAV) also forms part of Merrant’s BRIC multi-manager fund. In the same month, SLI also announced that it has signed an agreement with Aktia, the Finnish Savings Bank, to distribute its Global REIT Focus Fund in Finland.

For more information on Standard Life Investments SICAV range, please go to www.slisicav.com.