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Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London:

The Varus Fund, a long/short European equity fund with a focus on Germany, returned 3.45% (€ class) in January, after returning 2.22% in 2009 since its September-09 inception. The USD class returned 4.70% in January. The main contributors were the diversification of the managers' stock picking ideas. The average net exposure also increased to 35.8% and its gross exposure to 80.4%. It is managed by Heieck Siebrecht Capital Advisors AG (HSCA), a German team operating out of Zurich, Switzerland.

HSCA expects robust inventory rebuild, improved Q1-09 GDP for Germany The Varus Fund concentrates on companies that would benefit from further inventory recovery cycles.

According to preliminary estimates that Schroders, a London-listed fund management group, released last month, German growth stalled in Q3-2009 while eurozone growth as a whole slowed markedly (Schroders Talking Point). The German Office of Statistics estimated that quarterly GDP growth slowed significantly from 0.7% in Q3-09, to no growth in the Q4-09. Meanwhile, Eurostat estimated that eurozone growth as a whole slowed from 0.4% in Q3-09 to just 0.1% in Q4-09, disappointing consensus estimates of 0.3%.

"We had been concerned that German growth in the thir......................

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