A New Milestone

[Wes Tuinstra]

For those of you who don't know me well, let me say that I publish a Forex and commodity trading advisory. Now... that advisory is the basis of part of the strategy for a new hedge fund. :clap: The main strategy will be credit card debt restructuring, and a portion of the fund will be given to me to trade for them.

We went live on January 2, 2007. Here is the press release:

Westcastle Partners, LP (Dallas, TX) announces the launch of their new distressed debt hedge fund. Westcastle's managers have a combined 25 year track record managing and trading distressed debt and structured assets.

The fund which requires $500,000 minimum investment focuses on buying non-performing credit card debt in wholesale quantities and prices from major card issuers and then converting some of it into current, paying debt.

Because debt that is current is so much more valuable than non-paying debt, only a relatively small portion of debt need be converted to make the transaction profitable.

As with life insurance -- where for any specific age group an underwriter can predict how many will die but not which specific person -- so a debt underwriter can predict how much will convert but not which specific accounts will convert.

Once accounts are performing they can be grouped together and wrapped with an insurance guarantee and sold as investment-grade paper.

The fund anticipates returns of upwards of 25% returned to the investor as fixed income. There is a 2 year lockup on investor's funds.

Because there is a finite amount of qualified debt in the world, Westcastle anticipates a hard close once they reach $250 million. They already have pre-launch commitments worth about $50 million.

This type of investment is especially suited to insurance companies and pension funds that need fixed income-type cash flows on asset-backed paper rather than event-driven gains. Those interested should request a prospectus from Wes Tuinstra by emailing him at [email protected].