Friedberg Mercantile Group announces the launch of prospectus for multi-strategy fund

By  IE Staff

Friedberg Mercantile Group Ltd., manager of the Friedberg group of investment funds, announces the launch of a new, prospectus offered RRSP eligible multi-strategy mutual fund, the Friedberg Global-Macro Hedge Fund.

This new fund is a multi-strategy fund seeking significant total investment returns by investing in four discrete groups of strategies: (i) long positions in fixed-income securities; (ii) long and short position in equities; (iii) leveraged trading in currency derivatives, and (iv) leveraged trading in commodity derivatives.

Among the investment groups to be incorporated into the new fund's trading strategies are the commodity derivatives strategies of The Friedberg Diversified Fund and the combination of currency and commodity derivatives strategies of The Friedberg Diversified Fund, two existing funds in the Friedberg fund group. As a result of the incorporation of these strategies into the new fund, Friedberg Mercantile Group announces that it will be terminating The Friedberg Diversified Fund and The Friedberg Futures Fund.

Friedberg's determination to terminate the two funds was made in spite of their excellent performance, as shown by the following historical rates of return, to Aug. 31: Friedberg Diversified Fund: 1-year, 109.14%; 3-years, 89.43%; 5-years, 33.43%; life-to-date, 12.34%. Friedberg Futures Fund: 1-year, 50.20%; 3-years, 38.09%; 5-years, 12.36%; life-to-date; 5.12%.

Units in the Diversified and Futures Funds will be redeemed at net asset value per unit on Oct. 31, without incurring any redemption charges, and Canadian resident unitholders of such funds will be invited to invest the proceeds of their redemptions in the new Global Macro Hedge Fund.

“We are excited to be able to start the new mutual fund after having obtained all required regulatory approvals to allow us to invest the assets of the fund in several of the trading strategies we have developed,” said Albert Friedberg, president of Friedberg Mercantile Group Ltd. “We have been managing an offshore fund since November, 2001 and a Canadian pooled fund, offered to accredited investors, since May, 2002, using the same combination of strategies which have yielded very good results with very low volatility. An additional attraction of the new fund is that it will be eligible for investments by retirement plans which, we expect, will have a much broader appeal.”