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As one of three founding partners at Simple Alternatives, MacDonald will oversee manager selection and portfolio risk management at Simple Alternatives. Simple Alternatives plans to launch a multi-manager, hedged-equity alternative mutual fund in October of 2010.

MacDonald explains, “At Simple Alternatives, we provide access to the same premium quality managers we used at a multi-billion dollar endowment in a user friendly, transparent, liquid mutual fund structure.”

During his five years at UVIMCO, the equity strategy MacDonald oversaw outperformed the MSCI All Country World Index by nearly 6%. Prior to joining UVIMCO, MacDonald was Senior Investment Strategist for Putnam Investment’s Global Asset Allocation retail and institutional team. At Putnam, MacDonald was part of the portfolio management team that invested $12 billion of Putnam Investment’s Global Asset Allocation retail and institutional funds. He started his career working in the Columbia University endowment before continuing on to earn his MBA. MacDonald holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA in religion from Wesleyan University.

MacDonald is joining hedge fund industry veteran, Jim Dilworth, Founder and CEO of Simple Alternatives. Dilworth said, “We are extremely fortunate to add Bruce to the Simple Alternatives team. His experience with manager selection at UVIMCO, one of the largest and best performing endowment funds, and his risk management work at Putnam, is a perfect fit for the alternative mutual funds we are building at Simple Alternatives.” Dilworth also recently added to the team Josh Kernan, former Director of Alternative Investments at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.

According to a July 15, 2010 study by Strategic Insight, the fund industry should continue to see rising demand for “alternative” mutual funds – those offering exposure to market-neutral strategies, long/short strategies, hard commodities and other less-correlated asset classes. Alternative mutual funds ended the first half of 2010 with a record $116 billion in assets, up $102 billion at the end of 2009. The growth results from more investors seeking “absolute returns” and downside protection in the wake of the financial crisis as well as diversification of correlations to reduce volatility.

(Press release)

Simple Alternatives, LLC is an alternative mutual fund provider based in New Canaan, CT. The company makes premium, alternative investments available in mutual fund structures.

Founded in October 2009, Simple Alternative’s purpose is to create unique alternative investments with a multi-manager, absolute return strategy in a mutual fund structure. This investment model is often referred to among institutional investors and high net worth individuals as a “Fund of Funds” and has a proven track record in preserving capital and generating absolute returns in a variety of market conditions.

Simple Alternatives seeks to provide access to premium hedge fund managers in a format that eliminates many of the roadblocks that investors now face when considering alternative investments. The company has set out to provide a simple-to-use mutual fund structure that provides daily liquidity, high levels of transparency, low investment minimums and 1099 reporting at a significantly lower cost than a limited partnership structure. They expect to launch their first mutual fund in October of 2010. www.simplealternatives.com

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