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S&P Announces Annual Weightings Changes For The S&P Hedge Fund Index

Date 31/12/2002

In accordance with its published methodology, Standard & Poor's announced today the rebalancing of the S&P Hedge Fund Index and the associated sub-indices - Arbitrage, Event-Driven and Directional/Tactical. All indices will be rebalanced to reflect equal weighting. The changes will take effect after the close of trading January 2, 2003. The index calculations using the new weightings will be reported on Standard & Poor's website, www.standardandpoors.com, on January 6, 2003 to reflect the two-day lag in index value reporting.

For the main index, the nine S&P Hedge Fund Index strategies will be reset to 11.11% each. Within each strategy, the component funds will also be reset to equal weights.

For the Arbitrage, Event-Driven and Directional/Tactical sub-indices, the three component strategies that comprise each sub-index will be reset to 33.33% each. Within each strategy, the component funds will also be reset to equal weights.

About the Standard & Poor's Hedge Fund Index

The S&P Hedge Fund Index, introduced in May 2002 and launched in mid-November, is designed to be both investable and representative of the broad-based investment experience of the hedge fund marketplace. It comprises nine distinct hedge fund investment strategies grouped into three broad style categories-Arbitrage, Event-Driven and Directional/Tactical. There are 40 institutional quality managers that currently comprise the S&P Hedge Fund Index. In order to guarantee investability of the index, Standard & Poor's requires each of the constituent managers to set aside $100,000,000 in investment capacity for Index related assets. Its values are calculated and published daily by Standard & Poor's on its website. Index values are also available on Bloomberg tickers: SPHG (Main Index), SPHGARB (Arbitrage sub-index), SPHGEVT (Event-Driven sub-index), SPHGDIR (Directional/Tactical sub-index). More information about the structure, design and components of the S&P Hedge Fund Index can be found on www.standardandpoors.com.

About Standard & Poor's

Standard & Poor's is a leader in providing widely recognized credit opinions, financial data, analytical research and investment analysis to the global capital markets. With more than 5,000 employees located in 18 countries, Standard & Poor's is an integral part of the world's financial architecture. Additional information is available at www.standardandpoors.com.