BIAM launches two new investment strategies designed to perform in all market conditions.

Level of pre-launch investment exceeds €70 million

Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM) today, (Friday November 9th, 2007) announced the launch of two new investment strategies, BIAM Currency Alpha Strategies and BIAM Bond Alpha Strategies. These are Absolute Return strategies, which are designed to generate a positive return.

Absolute Return strategies cater primarily for institutional and high net-worth investors seeking a high performing source of diversification. The strategies use derivatives both to capture the potential of a limited number of concentrated market views, and also to facilitate short position taking, thereby enabling the manager to generate out performance in all market conditions.

Speaking at the launch today, Sean Crowe, Head of Global Fixed Income & Specialist Products, BIAM said "Today, an increasing number of customers are looking to us to provide a broader range of investment solutions. These Absolute Return strategies marry the best of traditional fund management with the latest techniques from the investment banking and hedge fund arena. They appeal to investors looking for the kind of investment returns normally associated with equity investments, but in this case generated from bond and currency markets. The two strategies we are launching today have already attracted over €70 million."

A team of specialists, led by David Thompson, Head of Absolute Return and Macro Strategy, will actively manage the new offering. David has over 20 years' investment experience and a consistently strong investment track record. Speaking at the launch, he said: "What makes our approach distinctive is that we use a combination of economics, investor psychology and money management techniques to optimise performance. Absolute Return is about backing your judgment - we do this by surgically targeting the maximum return from our strongest investment views within tightly managed risk parameters".

Ends.

Anne Mathews
Media Relations Manager
Group Corporate Communications
Ph. 00 353 1 604 3836 or 00 353 (0)87 246 0358

Editor's Notes

Absolute Return - targets positive returns whether markets are going up or down. This is in contrast to Relative Return funds which measure performance against a specific benchmark or market index.
Alpha - The return achieved in excess of a market or benchmark

Bank of Ireland Asset Management is the investment management arm of the Bank of Ireland Group. Founded in 1966, BIAM provides a wide range of specialist investment solutions to institutional and private investors worldwide.