The Aberdeen Equity Long-Short Fund wins 2009 Lipper Fund Award

We are pleased to announce that the Aberdeen Equity Long-Short Fund has been named Best Long/Short Equity Fund for the three-year period ended Dec. 31, 2008, by Lipper. The Fund competed among 37 long/short equity share classes to win the award.

“We are very delighted to be recognized by Lipper for the Fund’s consistently strong performance over the past three years,”said Shahreza Yusof, Head of U.S. Equities. “The award validates Aberdeen’s belief that, by following a clearly defined, consistent investment discipline for each of our mutual fund portfolios, together with our investment team’s hard work, we can produce superior returns for our clients over the long term."

The Lipper Fund Awards are presented by Lipper, a leading global provider of mutual fund research and analysis, and are based on calculation of Consistent Return. The ceremony took place on April 2, 2009 in New York City. (see event photo)

Why should you consider a long-short strategy in your portfolio?

Alternative investment strategies such as long-short equity investing have previously been available primarily to institutional investors. In recent years individual investors have gained greater access to this developing asset class. We believe the Fund offers:

• Complementary strategy to an investor’s long-only core holdings
• May have low correlation to other asset classes such as fixed income, real estate, etc.
• Competitive risk-adjusted returns through most market environments

To learn more about our award-winning Fund and how it may help to diversify your portfolio, please contact your financial advisor.

^{Consistent Return is a quantitative metric that incorporates two characteristics: risk-adjusted return and the strength of the fund’s performance trend. Lipper determined the award winner by averaging the decile rank of the three-year Consistent Return scores for all of the funds within the eligible groups. Although Lipper makes reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data, the accuracy is not guaranteed by Lipper.}

^{Lipper, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reuters, is a leading global provider of mutual fund information and analysis to fund companies, financial intermediaries and media organizations.}

^{PAST PERFORMANCE DOES NOT GUARANTEE FUTURE RESULTS. The Aberdeen Equity Long-Short Fund Lipper award was based on Institutional class shares of the Fund. Other share classes may have different performance characteristics. Fund performance may now be higher or lower than the performance that was calculated to win this award. Performance reflects certain fee waivers, without which returns would be lower.}

^{Over the time period rated, the Fund has experienced negative performance.}

^{The strategy used by the portfolio manager involves securities transactions, such as short-selling and leverage, which may cause the Fund to have greater risk and volatility. A short position will lose value as the security’s price increases. Theoretically, the loss on a short sale can be unlimited. Leverage will also increase market exposure and magnify risk.}