Investment Advisor, S&P, and Prima Announce Winners of First Annual U.S. Separately Managed Account Awards

Investment Advisor, S&P, and Prima Announce Winners of First Annual U.S. Separately Managed Account Awards

New York, NY (March 22, 2005) – Seven management teams within the separately managed account industry were deemed "best in class" by Standard & Poor’s and its awards partners, Prima Capital and Investment Advisor Magazine, today in the first annual U.S. Separately Managed Account Awards. Each of the winning management teams, recognized for consistently demonstrating rigorous investment processes along with strong levels of performance, will be acknowledged and profiled in the April 2005 Issue of Investment Advisor Magazine. In addition, Investment Advisor will post a detailed report on the Separately Managed Account Awards, as well as winner profiles on March 22nd at www.investmentadvisor.com. The complete list of award winners, methodology and other awards information can also be found by accessing www.sma-awards.standardandpoors.com/. More than 250 money managers running in excess of 600 SMA products in the U.S. were considered for this year’s awards program. To narrow down the list of potential winners, Standard & Poor’s, Prima Capital and Investment Advisor relied on Standard & Poor’s SMA Evaluator, a Web-based tool powered by Prima Capital, designed to provide comprehensive analytics, research and rankings on separate account managers. The 600 candidates were screened for the following criteria:

The separate account product must be available to investment advisors and open to new clients - The separate account product must have a minimum of $50 million of assets - The management team must have at least a three-year track record with the separate account product Those qualifying under these criteria were then required to demonstrate strong scores across five factors – Firm Quality, Depth of Resources, Client Service and Customization, Tax Efficiency, and Performance. Products were analyzed relative to their peers. Analysts from Standard & Poor’s and Prima Capital, along with editors from Investment Advisor Magazine, then assessed the remaining candidates to arrive at this year’s list of award winners. The winners of the 2005 Standard & Poor’s Separately Managed Account Awards are:

Large-Cap Equity
Thornburg Investment Management Inc. - Value Equity
WCM Investment Management - Focused Growth

Small/Mid-Cap Equity
New Amsterdam Partners LLC - Mid-Cap
ICM Asset Management - Small-Mid Cap Value Equity

About Investment Advisor Magazine
With a circulation of 77,000, Investment Advisor is the leading magazine serving independent—and independent-minded—advisors across the U.S. IA offers information on investment strategies, practice management, compliance and regulatory issues, new products, services, and technologies, and everything advisors need to become more successful. IA also publishes five monthly email newsletters and will hold the Fourth Annual Wealth Advisor Summit, in December 2005. Investment Advisor is a unit of WICKS Business Information, LLC. For more information, visit www.investmentadvisor.com.

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