by Everest Capital Ltd., giving the company a much needed boost after a spate of losses in the Russian market last year.

Soros Fund Management LLC, a $14.5 billion hedge fund group, allocated the money to Everest Capital, whose two hedge funds lost 45 percent and 73 percent last year, or about $1.3 billion of the $2.7 billion under management.

Everest is run by Marko Dimitrijevic. Mr. Soros himself lost about $2 billion in Russia. Like Everest the funds were principally hurt by investments in Russia.

Everest spokesman Tim Mistele told The Royal Gazette the company was on even keel. By and large investors had stuck with the fund. The company runs the Everest Capital Frontier Fund and the Everest Capital Fund.

"A lot of those stories (in the overseas media) were false,'' Mr. Mistele said. At the end of the year we had a net inflow of funds. We had modest amounts of redemptions.'' He also refuted allegations that Everest was moving offices out of Bermuda.

The fund manager was instead expanding he said. The company has reopened an office in Miami and a few people, including himself, have relocated there. The Bermuda office is in the process of hiring more people. About 15 people are currently located in Bermuda.

"The headquarters and the trading and administration remains in Bermuda,'' he said.

In a previous story last year in The Royal Gazette after Russian investments turned bad Mr. Misele had said the company was in no danger of collapsing. He said the funds held over $500 million in cash, about 40 percent of their holdings, and were not leveraged as others in the market were.

"Clearly we had a disappointing year,'' he said. "We continue to invest prudently using the strategies that have worked for us over the past eight years.'' Page 21: Everest in court dispute