NEWS - 12

Salus Alpha products outperform equity markets

Mon, 12/09/2011

For the year to 31 August 2011, all Salus Alpha Funds clearly outperformed global equity markets in a difficult environment.

The Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage had a performance of +9.13% for the year , while the US S&P 500 Index lost 3.08%, and the German DAX30 index lost 16.33% in the same period. This is an outperformance against the S&P 500 Index of +12.21% and against the DAX 30 Index of +25.46%.

Other products managed by Salus Alpha performed as follows for the year to date until 8/31/2011:  

Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage: +9.13% 

Salus Alpha Equity Hedged: +6.34% 

Salus Alpha Event Driven: +2.49%  

In such a difficult market environment, this outperformance results from the employment of an active management approach and from the diversification over numerous strategies and substrategies.

The Salus Alpha Real Estate had a performance of +0.68% for the month to date, outperforming the EPRA / NAREIT Index by +8.93%. The 12 month rolling alpha of Salus Alpha Real Estate to the Epra/Nareit Europe Index  is 7% p.a., the 12 month rolling beta is currently 0.2. This implies that in the past 12 months, the fund had a return of approximately 7% due to active management (alpha), and 0.19% return due to the positive market beta.

Salus Alpha Real Estate is a single manager single strategy fund, which invests according to Salus Alpha’s proprietary Global Real Estate Model. The Salus Alpha Real Estate outperformed the EPRA/NAREIT Real Estate Index by 8.93% and the GPR 250 Europe Index by 6.14% during the month of August. The fund currently has an exposure of 42% to the Real Estate markets.

Salus Alpha Real Estate has been awarded a 5 Star Rating by www.fondsprofessionell.de for its exceptional performance since inception on 21 January 2008. The fund outperformed the EPRA/NAREIT Real Estate Index by +22.30% in this timespan.

The Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage had a performance of +0.38% for the month to date, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by +6.06%. The fund outperformed the S&P GSCI Index by 2.04%, which booked a loss of -1.66% in the reporting period. The 12 month rolling alpha of Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage to the S&P500 is 9% p.a., the 12 month rolling beta is currently 0.0. This implies that in the past 12 months, the Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage had a return of 9% due to active management (alpha). Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage tracks the CAX - Commodity Arbitrage Index.

The CAX Index covers the performance of arbitrage strategies, which aim to extract consistent market neutral returns from valuation inefficiencies arising among related commodities - like for example Brent Crude vs. WTI Light Sweet Crude - or among different maturities of futures contracts on one commodity due to Contango, Backwardation and Seasonality. Contango denotes a market situation where longer-dated commodity futures are priced higher than shorter-dated commodity futures. Markets in contango are characterized by low demand relative to available supply. In these markets, investors holding a long position suffer a roll loss when selling expiring contracts at low prices, and buying new contracts as higher prices. The CAX Index currently has a 4.85% spread position in Lean Hogs, which is currently 37.55% p.a. contangoed.   

The Salus Alpha Equity Hedged had a performance of +6.34% for the year to date until 8/31/2011, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by +9.42%. The 12 month rolling alpha of Salus Alpha Equity Hedged to the S&P500 is 6% p.a., the 12 month rolling beta is currently -0.1. This implies that in the past 12 months, the fund had a return of 6% due to active management (alpha). The Fund outperformed the HFRX Equity Hedge Index by 20.22%. The Salus Alpha Equity Hedged currently has a 14% exposure to Long Bias, 34% to Market Neutral, 22% to Long Short Variable Bias,  and 30% to Short Bias.  

The Salus Alpha Event Driven had a performance of +2.49% for the year to date until 8/31/2011, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by +5.57%. The fund's performance for the period was 5.41% higher than the performance of the HFRX Event Driven Index.  The SA FX Strategies had a performance of -0.67% for the month to date, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by +5.01%. The product outperformed the industry benchmark Barclay BTOP FX Index by 0.70%. The index had a return of -1.37%. The FX Managers in the SA FX Strategies Portfolio profited by the USD's weakness vs. Russian Rouble, Norwegian Krone, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Swedish Krone, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Singapore Dollar, Mexican Peso, Polish Zloty and Brazilian Real. The managers incurred losses due to the Dollar's strength vs. New Zealand Dollar, and due to the USD devaluation vs. Euro, Japanese Yen and Danish Krone.  

The Salus Alpha Directional Markets had a performance of -2.24% for the year to date until 8/31/2011, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by +0.84%.

The Salus Alpha Multi Style had a performance of -0.76% for the year to date until 8/31/2011, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by +2.32%. The fund's performance was 4.39% above the performance of HFRX Global Index for the period.  

The Salus Alpha RN Special Situations had a performance of -7.71% for the year to date until 8/31/2011.  

The Salus Alpha Managed Futures had a performance of -0.03% for the year to date until 8/31/2011, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by +3.05%. The fund's performance was 0.41% better than the performance of the HFRX Macro Index for the period.