Mr. Nick Ashmore:

In terms of the process, it is a mix of inbound and outbound approaches. In terms of an inbound approach, an offer comes to us. Teams hear about the opportunity to raise funds from us and approach us directly or through contacts. This is a highly networked environment. It takes little to get a contact to introduce an idea to us. We find this happens on a regular basis. We have been developing intermediary relationships over the past couple of years, culminating in the market engagement event which took place last month. We try to be as accessible as possible. The degree to which we can do this is a reflection of the team.

Another approach involves our identifying an opportunity, to which we take a much more aggressive outbound approach. The BlueBay Assessment Management fund, Carlyle Cardinal Fund and Better Capital Fund are all results of a proactive process by ourselves identifying a gap in the market, sourcing a manager and encouraging the making of a proposal to us, which we then run through our process. Once we have a firm proposal, we conduct our own due diligence and do our own referencing. We also analyse the financial models and risks, potential pitfalls and any legislative requirements, etc. We then review the proposal and create formal investment proposal papers before taking those to the Commission for approval. Once we have approval from the Commission, we then move to a legal and taxation due diligence process where we finalise the agreements and move to close. The fund is then up and running and committed.

In regard to direct investment, we have seen few of these to date. However, they are starting to come in. To engage on a direct investment, we need a substantial investment opportunity. Our minimum investment size to date has been approximately €5 million to €10 million. For a fund commitment, it would need to be €15 million and above. For a direct investment it would be higher than that. If it is not higher, it is quite likely that we would steer that opportunity to one of our funds, if there is one in place. If it is a generalised private equity opportunity, which is a €20 million investment, we would steer that to Carlyle Cardinal or other players in the market. If it is a distressed business of any scale, we would steer it to Better Capital and if it is a business seeking a loan of between €5 million and €45 million over five or six years, then it is ideally suited for BlueBay. We try to complement rather than compete with these managers because they too are bringing other funds to play. We have a small team and they provide us with a great deal of leverage. They will also run similar investment processes and will have their teams review proposals and carry out their own due diligence. They also have their own legal and corporate finance advisers to underwrite the investments.