Fidelity Launches 'Partial Administration' Stock Plan Service

Fidelity Investments announced a “Partial Administration” offering, designed for companies who want to manage their stock plan records in-house and team with an external administrator for employee servicing, guidance and brokerage services.

The offering provides transparency for companies through proactive notifications and a dedicated dashboard providing companies end-to-end control of the process. It is focused on employee support and brokerage services, including collecting employee elections, helping manage plan activities by providing alerts and notifications, and providing stock plan education. Companies maintain control of their internal records and employee database.

“Many companies are very comfortable managing the recordkeeping side of their company stock plans, but they’re looking for a trusted financial service firm to manage the transactional side of these plans and provide guidance to their employees,” says Kevin Barry, executive vice president, Stock Plan Services at Fidelity Investments. “Our Partial Administration offering allows us to deliver a more efficient and effective plan sponsor experience, while providing exceptional brokerage and services capabilities to their employees.”

The offering will be available in December, and pricing will be based on a range of plan specifications and will likely vary by client.

Fidelity’s Partial Administration offering leverages the latest mobile technology and addresses the needs of employers with multi-generation and multi-geographical workforces. Product features and administrative services include:

• Guidance for employees on tax elections for both Restricted and Performance Award distributions;
• The ability to accept stock grants via Fidelity’s On-line Grant Acceptance module;
• Plan-related alerts and notifications to help employees manage their plans and monitor upcoming activities and required action steps;
• Educational materials, including documents and video, to help employees understand the benefits of their plan;
• Access to fully trained phone representatives to answer plan-related questions about enrollments, product features, deadlines and other items to help ensure employees understand their awards and are taking the right steps;
• Support to help manage executives with special requirements, including blackout windows, trading and share ownership restrictions;
• For Section 16 officers, support for 10b5-1 plans, SEC Form 144 and Form 4 reporting and filing assistance; and
• File exchange technology to easily connect with the company’s in-house recordkeeping system for easy configuration of data exchanges.

Fidelity has teamed with Certent and their Equity Compensation Management solutions as a Certified Data Interface provider, which enables plan administration and transaction solutions for joint clients. This solution delivers a robust and reliable data interface, including data transmission for stock options, restricted stock awards/units, performance awards/units, stock appreciation rights (SARs) and employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs).