Fidelity to Provide Space to Democratic Committee

The Democratic National Committee will soon be sending rent checks to Fidelity Investments, Reuters reports. The committee has signed a lease to rent 50,000 square feet of downtown Boston office space owned by the fund giant.

Fidelity owns a total of five million square feet of real estate in Massachusetts, of which it rents 1.3 million square feet.

The signing of the lease is somewhat ironic, as mutual fund critic Roy Weitz, publisher of FundAlarm.com, recently lampooned Fidelity for its support of President Bush’s dividend tax cut with a satire on its issuance of "Class R," for Republican, class shares. "Class R shares will carry a number of important benefits," Weitz’ spoof claimed, "including an additional return of 5% per year, which Fidelity will take from all other shareholders of the same fund and reallocate to Class R shareholders."

A spokeswoman for Fidelity told Reuters the firm supports neither Republicans nor Democrats and that the firm was merely happy to sign a lease for space that had remained vacant.

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