Asset management company WP Stewart suffered a net loss of $21 million for the fourth quarter of 2007 and a total of more than $30 million net loss for last year.

The Bermuda-based firm put the losses mainly down to a decline in assets under management, as reflected in non-recurring charges of $15.7 million, approximately $15.6 million of which were a non-cash charge relating to an impairment of intangible assets.

The fourth quarter results compare with net income of $11.6 million or 25 cents per share for the same period in 2006, while net income for the year dropped by more than $30 million from $37.5 million or 82 cents per share in 2006 to a net loss of $31.4 million for the corresponding period last year.

Full-year results for 2007 include a non-recurring gain on the sale of the company's aircraft of $10.2 million, post-tax, offset by non-recurring charges of about $8 million regarding agreements with certain employees whose contracts were terminated, and $33.6 million related to the impairment of customer-related intangible assets.

Cash earnings were also down for last year's fourth quarter at $1.3 million or three cents per share from $14.5 million or 32 cents per share for the same time during the prior year.

Meanwhile, for the fourth quarter 2007, there were 46,259,547 common shares outstanding on a weighted average diluted basis compared to 45,817,333 outstanding from the previous year's fourth quarter.

Last month, WP Stewart announced it was reviewing "strategic alternatives" after its assets under manager management dropped 20 percent last quarter and 50 percent last year. It hired Merrill Lynch & Co. as an adviser and is in discussions with number of parties.

This followed the company's assets under management falling to $4.1 billion at the end of 2007, compared to $5 billion at the end of the third quarter and $8.1 billion at the end of 2006.

The declining trend of assets under management continued from 2006, at the start of which, the company had $8.3 billion of assets under management, which dropped $300 million over the second quarter and to $5 billion by the end of September.

Bill Stewart, chairman and CEO, said of the results: "While the decline in assets under management has been disappointing to all of us, I'm pleased that our clients' relative performance continues to improve.

"Our US Equity Composite has outperformed the S&P 500 year to date through February and has cumulatively outperformed the S&P 500 since June of 2007.

"As of February 25, our WP Stewart Growth Fund, which is managed in a manner similar to our direct US equity client accounts, ranked fourth among large cap growth funds in the Wall Street Journal's Mutual Fund Scorecard.

"Our research focus, as always, is to ensure that the 'look through' earning power behind clients' portfolios keeps growing in good times and bad.

"Expanding the number of eligible companies in our US equity universe and increasing its sustainable earnings growth rate has been a key goal over the past year.

"We have made good progress from the present bear market with faster 'look through' earnings growth and the opportunity for significant PE expansion from currently depressed levels."