(December 13 – 10:30 ET) – Perigee Inc. is introducing a new U.S. equity fund in Canada. The Perigee Legg Mason U.S. Value Fund will be managed by the same investment team that has earned national recognition in the U.S. for long-term performance.

The portfolio manager for the Perigee Legg Mason U.S. Value Fund and the highly regarded Legg Mason Value Trust is Bill Miller, who was voted “Fund Manager of the Decade” in Morningstar.com’s 1999 Investment Poll and named Morningstar’s “Domestic Equity Fund Manager of the Year” in 1998.

As president of Legg Mason Funds Management with assets of over U.S. $20 billion, Miller and his investment team have beaten Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index in each of the past nine calendar years from 1990 to 1999. The Perigee Legg Mason U.S. Value Fund had its inception on October 30, and already has more than $200 million invested through Perigee’s existing client base.

Using a disciplined approach to value investing, the fund will review companies for their intrinsic value measured by such factors as the discounted value of projected future free cash flows, the market value of similar companies, the value of assets and the costs to replicate the business. The fund may invest in large foreign companies traded on non-U.S. exchanges.

The fund is designed for institutional investors with a long-term performance horizon. Fund managers anticipate a low turnover in the portfolio with an average stock holding period of five to seven years.
-IE Staff