Citi’s OpenPrime Hedge Fund Operating Platform Wins Three New Mandates

Three Recent Mandates Bring Number of Clients Worldwide to over 20

Citi announces that OpenPrime, its innovative front-to-back operating platform developed for hedge funds and 130/30 funds, has attracted more than 20 clients worldwide during its first two years of operation. The three recent mandates – from CMTF Asset Management Limited, Galaxy Asset Management (HK) Ltd. and the Montana Board of Investments for its new 130/30 funds – underscore the marketplace’s recognition of the bottom-line benefits OpenPrime delivers to fund managers around the world.

Nicholas Roe, Citi’s Global Head of Prime Finance, said, “We are focused on delivering quality solutions for all of our clients’ alternative investment services requirements. These three recent mandates are additional evidence that OpenPrime is quickly becoming the solution for hedge funds and institutional funds launching leveraged or multi-asset products.”

OpenPrime is a portfolio management and order management system that is prime broker agnostic. It allows funds to manage their positions in one place across multiple asset classes, strategies and prime brokers. Citi hosts the solution for its clients, managing all the technology and disaster recovery services. Fund managers can access the solution anywhere in the world through the Internet. OpenPrime, based on Linedata’s Beauchamp technology, gives funds a comprehensive view across legal vehicles, strategies, sectors and counterparties, with immediate updates for every trade and price change.

Peter Salvage, Citi’s Global Head of OpenPrime and Hedge Fund Middle Office Services, said, “These are top-flight hedge funds and 130/30 managers and we are proud they decided to go with OpenPrime. Operations are becoming more complex and investors want to see industrial strength operations from their fund managers. Managers want to focus on what they are best at – making investment decisions, while outsourcing their technology and operations. Global fund managers are increasingly using OpenPrime to reduce operational complexity, risk and costs.”

In recognition of its breakthrough capabilities, OpenPrime was cited for “Innovation” in SourceMedia’s “2007 Fund Operations Awards” Program.

OpenPrime is a part of Citi’s suite of hedge fund servicing solutions, integrating Prime Finance, Hedge Fund Administration and Lava direct market access platforms.

OpenPrime’s recent client mandates include:

* CMTF Asset Management Limited is a joint venture between China Merchants Securities and Tai Fook Asset Management. CMTF Asset Management is a prime brokerage client of Citi that has recently launched an equity long-short fund focusing on the Greater China region. It is also one of Hong Kong’s most visible hedge fund managers, backed by the experience of China Merchants Securities and Tai Fook Asset Management. OpenPrime will enable CMTF to improve investment portfolio management and streamline operations through the use of trade capture, portfolio management, analytics and reporting, and portfolio accounting tools

* Galaxy Asset Management (HK) Ltd, one of the highly regarded hedge fund houses in Hong Kong, is utilizing OpenPrime as the operating platform for its recently launched Galaxy China Deep Value Fund. The fund aims to capitalize on under-valued opportunities in both the listed and non-listed markets in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It has the ability to invest up to 30% in unlisted securities including pre-IPOs and private equity deals. Joe Chan and Jacky Wong, the two Managing Directors at the company, decided to deploy OpenPrime to assist their team with operations flow on a daily basis. The system is also utilized to track daily profit and loss, provide automated pricing of the portfolio and deliver reports for all trades both with prime brokers and with administrators.

* Montana Board of Investments is the manager of the public pension funds for the state of Montana. MBOI selected Citi Prime Finance and OpenPrime to help manage a program of investments in 130/30 strategies. OpenPrime allows MBOI to more effectively monitor these investments by providing consolidated metrics across their entire investment program. Using OpenPrime, MBOI can also analyze their 130/30 program by manager and sector. OpenPrime automatically alerts MBOI on screen and by email if their 130/30 investments approach certain risk thresholds specific to the MBOI program.