Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG)

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Fortress posts loss; stock up on dividend news
Tue Mar 25, 2008 1:59pm EDT

BOSTON (Reuters) - Fortress Investment Group on Tuesday reported a quarterly loss after payments to its principals, but the hedge fund and private equity company's shares rose nearly 4 percent amid signals that business was strong despite tough conditions.

The 10-year-old company, one of very few publicly traded hedge and private equity fund firms, posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $29.3 million, or 43 cents a share, compared with year-earlier net income of $290 million.

Fortress, which went public in February 2007, did not provide earnings per share for the year-earlier period.

Pretax distributable earnings fell 43 percent to $78 million, or 18 cents a share, in line with the analysts' average forecast, according to Reuters Estimates.

Quarterly revenue fell 22 percent to $196 million. Like other hedge and private equity funds, Fortress earns management fees, which climbed 43 percent, and incentive fees, which fell 59 percent.

The New York-based company also announced a first-quarter dividend of 23 cents per share, prompting analysts and investors to think business is going well.

The past year has been difficult for many hedge funds as they posted their biggest-ever losses in January.

Fortress executives, however, sounded an optimistic note on a conference call with analysts, saying they had money to invest and were seeing good opportunities.

Maintaining the dividend "ought to serve as proof of FIG's confidence in its ability to persevere (or even thrive) amid difficult market conditions," Goldman Sachs analyst Marc Irizarry wrote in a research note. Continued... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKN2537709920080325?rpc=44