AlphaNorth Partners Fund Achieves Three Year Milestone with Stellar Results

TORONTO, Dec. 8 /CNW/ - AlphaNorth Asset Management, manager of the AlphaNorth Partners Fund ("the Fund") achieved a significant three year milestone with annualized performance of 28.4%.  This places the Fund well ahead of widely recognized Canadian equity benchmarks such as the TSX Venture Index and the TSX Total Return Composite which returned negative 8.9 and minimally positive 1.2 percents respectively over the same period. 

"We are very pleased with the Fund's performance so far," said Steve Palmer, President and CEO, AlphaNorth Asset Management.  "It is particularly significant that we have achieved this performance over a very difficult period for equity investing and given that the Fund employs a long biased investment strategy."

Steve Palmer and Joey Javier founded AlphaNorth Asset Management in 2007, launching the AlphaNorth Partners Fund in December of that year, not long before the credit crisis and equity market meltdown.  Despite the challenging times, the long biased small cap hedge fund has achieved strong returns.  Unlike many Canadian funds which are primarily resource focused, the AlphaNorth Partners Fund invests across diversified sectors. 

AlphaNorth has been bullish on equities since August which has proven to be the right call as the TSX has rallied 12.0% since the end of August and the AlphaNorth Partners Fund has rocketed ahead by 46.7% over the past three months.  Palmer believes that equity markets will continue to be strong in December as stated in his November commentary.

As a team, Palmer and Javier have managed small cap equities for more than 12 years.  "We prefer to focus on the small cap sector as this is the asset class which has offered the best investment returns over the long term," continued Palmer.  "With the AlphaNorth Partners Fund, we are not concerned with generating consistently positive months but rather our goal is to maximize returns over the longer term.  This adds some volatility to the monthly returns but we expect the longer term returns will far exceed strategies which seek to minimize volatility over the short term as we have demonstrated over the past 12 years."

The AlphaNorth Partners Fund is RRSP eligible and is available through FundSERV.

About AlphaNorth

AlphaNorth Asset Management ("AlphaNorth") is a Toronto based investment manager.  AlphaNorth believes that superior long term equity returns are achievable by exploiting inefficiencies in the Canadian small cap universe through careful security selection on both a long and short basis.  The firm combines technical analysis with both a bottom-up and top-down strategy in the selection of investments offering the best reward versus risk opportunities. AlphaNorth manages the AlphaNorth Partners Fund which is a long biased small cap focused hedge fund, which was launched in December 2007.  The Fund's objective is to achieve industry leading long term returns.  AlphaNorth also manages the AlphaNorth 2010 Flow-Through LP.

More details about AlphaNorth and its investment products can be found at their website at www.alphanorthasset.com. 

For further information:

Scarlett Rounthwaite

AlphaNorth Asset Management

144 Front Street West, Suite 420

Toronto, Ontario, Canada  M5J 2L7

Phone: [phone]