The Firm differentiates itself from its competitors in numerous ways.

Ramius is differentiated from its competitors in a number of ways, including the expertise and experience gained by Ramius' Managing Members in their past positions as senior executives of major financial institutions involved in capital markets activities, proprietary trading and third-party investment management all on a global scale.  As stated above, Ramius' Managing Members take a "hands-on" approach to managing key aspects of the investment process (including capital allocation to strategies, risk analysis and management and internal teamwork).  Bringing with them years of experience at the most senior levels of global finance, capital markets and asset management, the Managing Members offer invaluable insight and their active participation in the investment process helps Ramius to maintain its edge in a dynamic market environment.  Other distinguishing features of Ramius' that enable us to maintain our edge include:

• Expertise in the following areas:

1. Origination of investment opportunities
2. Screening of investments to ensure opportunities meet Ramius' risk-adjusted return standards
3. "Know-how" in generating alpha
4. Exiting investments successfully

• The Firm's management of client assets on both an internal basis (multi-strategy and single strategy hedge fund programs) and an external basis (fund of funds programs), which allows for a deeper overall understanding of underlying strategies and a more effective analysis of underlying sub-managers
• Founders' and investment staff's extensive global network of relationships, enabling Ramius to:

1. Anticipate industry and strategy capital flows and the life cycles of strategies
2. Identify global market opportunities to develop new strategies
3. Identify portfolio management talent both internally and externally to employ strategies
4. Originate new investment opportunities within strategies to provide differentiation from other market participants

• "Hands-on" experience gained during severe market declines and crisis periods
• A risk management and hedging process that incorporates both practical experience and quantitative analysis, knitting together "top-down" capital allocation and "bottom-up" fundamental investment skills to eliminate unwanted portfolio beta and maintain an aggregate portfolio that meets its targeted risk/return objectives
• The ability to use proprietary capital for new strategy development, investments in technology and staff retention