Select Asset Management can manage your Alternative Assets

(EMAILWIRE.COM, June 30, 2007 ) Sydney, Australia -- The Select Asset Management team has the experience and expertise to help you manage your alternative assets. We have a number of alternative asset funds to suit a range of requirements. Let us find an alternative assets investment that works for you.What are Alternative Assets?Key characteristics of alternative assets are listed below.- Alternative assets tend to be illiquid - Commonly alternative assets have Multi-year holding periods to realise investment returns. - There are a limited number of market participants in most sub-sectors, which generally leads to inefficiencies within alternative assets. - Appraisal based valuations are frequently used rather than readily identifiable market traded prices for alternative assets. - Manager skill is an important determinant of performance for alternative assets (much more so than compared with mainstream asset managers). The following section provides a description of the main sub-sectors we regard within alternative assets, namely private equity, commodities, precious metals (including gold) and infrastructure.Alternative Assets - Private EquityPrivate Equity encompasses securities of companies that have not “gone public” (in other words, companies that have not listed their stock on a public stock exchange). Often, private equity offerings are the way companies generate capital before they go public and sell shares in the financial markets. Consequently, this allternative investment is considered to be illiquid i.e. not easy to sell.There are many specialist alternative assets sectors within the private equity market, often associated with the life cycle of businesses. The main sectors are listed below.- Seed capital - Start-up or venture capital - Early expansion capital - Development capital Alternative Assets - CommoditiesWhile managed futures used in trading strategies may both buy and sell commodity futures contracts or commodity options (along with other contracts), investors can also choose to purchase commodities outright or indirectly in a number of ways. We group commodities into three specific sectors as summarised below.- Metals - Energy Sector - Soft Commodities Alternative Assets - Precious MetalsAlthough precious metals also appear in most commodity indices, a strong case can be made for their inclusion as separate alternative assets, primarily because they have a monetary element not present in most commodities. By far the most common precious metal is gold followed by silver and other metals such as platinum and palladium. Alternative Assets - InfrastructureInfrastructure investments include projects that support the community, including transportation links (e.g. airports, roads and bridges), essential services delivery (e.g. electricity, gas and water) and social infrastructure (e.g. housing, hospitals and education). Infrastructure assets are also characterised by the following features: they have high initial capital costs, are time consuming to build, have long lives (usually 20 years or more), and support other economic and social activities.Infrastructure investments can be classified into three main groups:- Greenfield - Developing - Mature Other Alternative Assets There are a range of other alternative assets including investments in art, antiques, alternative debt securities and opportunistic property investments.Select Asset Management Limited (SELECT) is an independent Australian boutique fund manager specialising in alternative investments and was founded in 2002. Our aim is to enhance wealth regardless of the economic climate or the performance of traditional benchmarks. This is the philosophy of 'absolute returns'. If you would like more information on SELECT and our range of funds, including the Select Private Equity Portfolio, you can contact SELECT on 1800 898 398 or email invest@selectfunds.com.au. Alternatively you can visit our website, www.selectfunds.com.au.###This press release was issued through GroupWeb EmailWire.com. For more information on press release distribution, go to http://www.emailwire.com.

Select Asset Management
Nina Dunn

invest@selectfunds.com.au