Rating

Global Risk Experts

Alternative & Traditional Assets, Hedge Funds & Risk Management

Schmidt Research Partners Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (452684).

Copyright Schmidt Research Partners Limited 2005-2010.

Rating and Due Diligence Services

We provide the following Rating & Due Diligence Certification Services:

Rating of Hedge Funds, Hedge Funds of Funds and UCITS III Funds
Due Diligence Audit and Certification of Hedge Funds and UCITS III Funds
IOSCO Audit & Certification (for HFoF)

Following extensive analysis and evaluation, we assign separate ratings to each of these three pillars, from which we then arrive at our overall rating.

Our rating scale is as follows:

AAA: all three pillars are top

AA: two of the three pillars are top

A: one of the three pillars is top

Examples:

1) top firm, top fund, top performance: Schmidt Rating AAA

2) top firm, top fund, performance average: Schmidt Rating AA

3) top firm, fund and performance average: Schmidt Rating A

The Rating Report

Our Rating Reports are based on extensive / full on- and off-site due diligence and in-depth in-house research.

On the basis of our due diligence we write a Rating Report reflecting our opinion on the firm, fund and performance, which we then ask the manager to check for factual accuracy.

For the convenience of the readers, i.e. investors, counterparties and the fund manager himself, our reports are presented in a compact and informative format, which is the condensed version of our full, in-depth due diligence.

The objective of the rating and rating report is to give our opinions, without repeating information available from the manager’s marketing material.

The Rating Report consists of four – six pages, including two pages of analytics.

Due Diligence Audit and Certification

We offer independent, third party due diligence audit and certification based on the methodology developed internally over the past 20 years (Schmidt Research Partners Due Diligence Standards) for Hedge Funds.

Products:

• IOSCO Standards Audit and Certification for Hedge Fund of Funds

• Due Diligence Audit Certification for Hedge Funds

• Due Diligence Audit Certification for UCITS III Funds

• Due Diligence Audit Certification for other Funds

Reasons for Independent Due Diligence

• Due Diligence (operational, structural and non-investment) is key for any investment decision

• Should be carried out before any investment

• Monitoring (on-going due diligence) important as firms and funds change over time

• Self-certification meaningless

• The Madoff fraud highlights the need for independent third party due diligence