A Decade of Epic Performance

BluMont Hirsch Performance Fund Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary

This past month the BluMont Hirsch Performance Fund achieved its tenth year of impressive returns. Since its September 11, 1997 inception, the fund has an annualized return of 15.69% and a total net return of 332.89%  - more than twice the total return for the S&P/TSX composite index for the same time period.¹$150,000 invested at the launch of the product would have multiplied to close to $650,000.²

The fund is a unique Canadian equity fund, offering enhanced profit potential with no management fee.²  Unlike typical Canadian equity funds, the BluMont Hirsch Performance Fund does not charge a management fee.²  Investors only pay for positive performance, which truly aligns the interests of the manager with the investor's interests. A 20% performance fee is applied only when the fund delivers a net return in excess of a perpetual high water mark.² 

In the decade since the BluMont Hirsch Performance Fund was first launched, this top-quartile performing fund³ has received numerous accolades and achievements including:

Veronika Hirsch, lead portfolio manager, is a veteran of the Canadian investment management industry with over 25 years experience and is recognized as one of Canada’s premier equity investment managers.  

Ms. Hirsch’s style uses a qualitative, research intensive, bottom-up approach to portfolio construction combined with event-driven trading. The fund focuses on reacting quickly to changing capital markets, managing liquidity, looking for new core “growth” stocks and trading cyclical stocks.

The stock selection methodology places emphasis on choosing companies with proven management, a strong balance sheet and thus financial flexibility, reasonable valuation parameters and multiple avenues for successful growth.

Due to investor demand, capacity in the BluMont Hirsch Performance Fund will be open to new investors until assets reach $200 Million.

For more information on the BluMont Hirsch Performance Fund please contact BluMont Capital at 416-216-3566 / 1-866-473-7376 or via email at service@blumontcapital.com.

Profile:  Augen Capital Corp.

Augen Capital Corp. (“Augen”) (TSX.V:AUG),  is a merchant bank specializing in the financing of, and investment in, early stage resource companies.  Augen is an industry leader in tax advantaged flow-through investments in Canada’s resource sectors.

Augen is the Flow-Through Consultant to the BluMont Augen Limited Partnership 2007-1.

With expertise in investing in emerging resource sector issuers, coupled with particular emphasis in the mining sector, Augen provides technical expertise and due diligence services to assist with the review and selection of investment opportunities in resource companies.

Having raised over $54 million in flow-through limited partnership assets since 1999, Augen has under management a core portfolio of primarily emerging resource stocks and three resource flow-through limited partnerships.

Augen’s investment approach is to focus on investment merits first and tax benefits second; whereby they actively seek return on capital as opposed to most flow-through firms which focus solely on the return of capital.  This approach has resulted in Augen’s LPs delivering an average cumulative after-tax return of 70%.^8,9

Augen has built a team of specialists in the area of Canadian junior mining and exploration resulting in an intellectual edge in this space.  Furthermore, Augen takes an activist approach sitting on the board of several of the companies that it invests in.

The external advisory committee plays an active role in the investment process at Augen including the sourcing of investment prospects.

Augen’s edge over their competition is the diversification of their portfolio.  Investment is not limited to Oil and Gas, Gold, Uranium or Base Metals – but is diversified to include all of these commodities. 

For more information on the BluMont Augen Limited Partnership 2007-1 contact your financial advisor or BluMont Capital. 

Man Investments Performance Report

August 2007 was an exceptionally challenging month for hedge funds as increased market volatility and a large scale flight from risk had a negative impact upon product returns. Man Global Strategies ("MGS") has therefore been monitoring manager risk positioning and performance extremely closely through the transparent managed account structure, and will maintain close communications with each manager so we can continue to be responsive to changing market conditions.

Clearly the style and product returns in August are very disappointing, but they are within modelled expectations, both in terms of historic drawdown expectations and worst loss assumptions. From a hedge fund perspective, we have experienced the most significant market event since August 1998 when the Russian Financial crisis occurred. Current losses are therefore not without precedent and a great deal of analysis has been carried out across the business to ensure our products are structured robustly to enable them to survive events such as this, and continue to target their marketed return ranges in the face of short-term drawdowns.

MGS structured products target higher volatility and returns than is typical in the industry. This means they have the potential to deliver higher than average returns in the medium-term, but by targeting higher volatility, deeper than average drawdowns must also be expected.  During similar periods of drawdown previously, MGS products have shown a strong ability to recover quickly, as above average returns tend to be achieved in the aftermath of periods of market instability.

The MGS Risk team monitor each guaranteed product against their worst loss limits on a daily basis and have confirmed that, at this time, every MGS product has sufficient trading capital available to continue trading at target investment exposure as a percentage of NAV. As a result, no product degears were required for September.

While there is still some uncertainty surrounding the current markets, MGS managers are already identifying some potential opportunities and are poised to exploit these when it is appropriate. MGS will continue to monitor its managers and engage with them to ensure the MGS portfolios are best positioned to weather instability and capture future opportunities.

Click here for the Man Investments performance report.