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27 Aug 2007

Australian Hedge Fund Up $20 Million

HFA Holdings, an Australian hedge fund manager that manages more than $3 billion, announced a surge in annual profit, and says the outlook is very positive.

Paul Jensen, cheif Executive at HFA, said the outlook for the company remained positive despite recent equity market volatility. Annual profit was $20.3 million, up 288%, while normalised profit, excluding one-offs, was up 157%.

HFA, which listed on the Australian stock exchange in April 2006, said the result beat its prospectus forecast guidance of a $13.9 million profit, by 46%. The hedge fund manager also announced that they plan on reopeninf two of their funds for investment in the first half of fiscal 2008.

The strong result reflected continued inflows into its hedge fund products, plus two capital raisings during the year. The declining share price forced HFA to postpone an estimated $700 million cash-and-scrip takeover of US counterpart and long-time investment partner Lighthouse Investment Partners.

HFA previously told the market that it had taken short positions on the US sub-prime mortgage market and was therefore benefiting from the crisis, but that hasn't stopped its shares falling from $3.00 on July 25 to a low of $1.65 on August 15.

With offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and executives based in Perth and Hobart, HFA is a specialist funds management company providing absolute return fund products to retail, wholesale and institutional investors throughout Australia.

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