Arrow Hedge Launches Hedge Fund for Canadian Registered Plans

Date: Thursday, February 13, 2003

The Arrow RSP Multi-Strategy Fund is a “clone” of the original Arrow Multi-Strategy Fund and qualifies as 100% Canadian content for all Registered Savings Plans including RRSPs and RRIFs, according to Arrow Hedge officials. The fund allocates to 14 hedge fund managers in a number of strategies including: long/short equity, high-yield hedge, risk arbitrage, convertible arbitrage, volatility arbitrage and global macro. The new fund’s objective is to achieve absolute return over T-bills with bond-like volatility and low correlation to market indexes. The multi-strategy fund is the second Arrow Hedge fund that qualifies for registered plans. The Arrow Global RSP Long/Short Fund was structured to be 100% eligible for RSPs, which are the Canadian equivalent of Individual Retirement Accounts in the United States. The rules in such plans state that a fund may not have more than 30% of its holdings in foreign securities. Arrow has offered the Arrow Global Multi-Manager Fund, the fund that is the basis of the new global RSP fund even though it does not meet those RSP requirements, since June 2001. In order to make the global fund available to RSP participants, Arrow simply used a forward contract to link to two funds of funds. All Arrow Hedge funds are in compliance with Canadian sophisticated investor regulations with specific investment minimums of C$150,000 (US$97,847) for all provinces in Canada, with the exceptions of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, PEI and Yukon, which have minimums of C$97,000, and Newfoundland, which has a minimum of C$100,000. Accredited investors in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario qualify for a lower investment minimum of C$25,000, according to Arrow Hedge.