Edmond de Rothschild Prifund

1. Expertise

Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild SA has been in the alternative multimanagement business since 1969, when we set up the world’s first fund of hedge funds.

This was the brainchild of Georges Karlweis, who went on to become a general manager and managing director of the Bank. Alexandre Col, who has directed the Investment Fund Department of our Geneva headquarters since 2000, began his career at the Bank in 1994, working with Mr Karlweis and as assistant to Hubert Tonson La Tour. Thus, there is a direct continuity between 1969 and the present since the current head of investment funds was trained by the inventor of funds of hedge funds.

2. Security

Prifund itself as well as its custodian, administrator and management company are all overseen by either the Swiss or the Luxembourg financial regulator.

The umbrella fund is a Luxembourg-based SICAV administered by our Luxembourg subsidiary, Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild Europe.

The management company, Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild SA, Geneva, is a publicly traded Swiss bank.

3. Liquidity

Prifund has honoured every single application by shareholders to redeem shares. In late 2008 early 2009, when numerous hedge funds were suspending their NAV publications or even going belly-up, we maintained our one-month liquidity and never activated the gate and sidepocket provisions of our prospectus.

The notice period for redeeming shares is still only one month, with a 0.5% exit fee that is ploughed back entirely into Prifund. There is no subscription fee.

4. Team

A staff of 40 in Geneva handles the management, administration and distribution of the Alpha line, including the legal and all other aspects of its operation.

The Group also has fund-of-hedge-funds teams in Paris and London. In all, over 80 specialists are dedicated to alternative multimanagement.

5. Size

As of the 31st of December 2009, the assets under management of the Group’s funds of hedge funds totalled USD 11 billion. The Prifund Alpha subfunds authorised for distribution in Switzerland had assets of CHF 3 billion.

6. Due diligence and monitoring

Our screening and tracking processes can be trusted, as illustrated by our funds of funds' ability to weather the 2008-09 financial crisis.

7. Track Record

As an example of Prifund's performance, our non-directional subfund Alpha Uncorrelated (US-dollar class) returned 74.1% from 23 May 2001, the date of its launch, to 30 October 2009. During the same period the MSCI World equity index fell 11.4%. Remarkably, Alpha U was able to stay in positive territory in 2001 and 2002 when stockmarkets were tanking.

8. Awards

In 2008 our multimanager products won three coveted distinctions. InvestHedge, New York named us the world's best fund-of-hedge-funds management group. Our Prifund Alpha subfunds were declared the best Swiss fund of hedge funds line by Banco. Finally, Alpha Traders and Alpha Uncorrelated were awarded recognition by Portfolio Advisers, London. In 2009 our Group and four of our funds of hedge funds, including Alpha U and Alpha T, were again nominated for the InvestHedge Awards. And in November 2009 Banco chose Prifund Alpha U as the best Swiss mono-strategy fund of hedge funds over three years.

At the occasion of the InvestHedge Awards 2009 given in March 2010 in New York, four of our funds and the Edmond de Rothschild Group have been nominated. This year two funds have been awarded such as Prifund Alpha Europa which has been awarded for the best European Strategies fund. Again, Prifund Alpha Europa received the award of best fund of hedge funds specialist under $ 500 millions at the HFMWeek Awards.