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Major Step Forward for Socially Responsible Investing: Progressive Asset Management Launches Seven Index-Based, Benchmarked Portfolios for Key Asset Classes

Major Step Forward for Socially Responsible Investing: Progressive Asset Management Launches Seven Index-Based, Benchmarked Portfolios for Key Asset Classes

Published 10-03-06

Submitted by Progressive Asset Management, Inc.

OAKLAND, Calif.-- There is good news today for institutions and individuals who are interested in socially responsible investing (SRI) but may have been held back by investment advisors concerned about a lack of index-based and benchmarked SRI investment choices: Progressive Asset Management (PAM) is launching "Progressive Track Investments(TM)" (PTI), the first comprehensive portfolio suite under one roof that is both socially screened and tracks existing benchmark indexes for most major asset classes.

The seven portfolios are screened on social and environmental grounds by Progressive Asset Management and then optimized by Sausalito, CA-based Aperio Group, which uses factor-modeling techniques to replicate index benchmark performance. Each PTI portfolio seeks to track the financial performance of a specific market benchmark as closely as possible. Each PTI portfolio may hold up to 150 individual securities, permitting broad diversification within its asset class.

PAM Director of Business Development Phil Kirshman, CFA, CFP, said: "We believe there is a place and a real need for both passive and active management strategies in the SRI world. For investment advisors who need SRI solutions but are strongly inclined to use passive investing tools, we offer the Progressive Track Investment portfolios as a unique addition to the SRI product landscape. In fact, PTI is a solution that fills gaps in that landscape that may have acted as a deterrent for many investment advisors with socially responsible clients."

The seven PTI benchmark-tracking portfolios by asset class and benchmark are as follows: large-cap growth (S&P/Citigroup 500 Growth Index); large-cap value (S&P/Citigroup 500 Value Index); mid-cap growth (S&P/Citigroup 400 Growth Index); mid-cap value (S&P/Citigroup 400 Value Index); small-cap growth (S&P/Citigroup 600 Growth Index); small-cap value (S&P/Citigroup 600 Value Index); and international (MSCI EAFE Index).

Kirshman added: "Owning multiple asset classes allows investors to achieve greater diversification across the market more generally. Advisors can use Progressive Track Investments to diversify their clients' SRI portfolios among under-served asset classes (such as small cap or international) or to create broadly diversified SRI portfolios from scratch."

For the same all-inclusive advisory fee, RIAs are free to choose among the PTI portfolios in any combination for their clients. An account can hold just one portfolio or any combination of more than one portfolio -- up to and including all seven. This flexibility means that PTI portfolios could serve as the "core" of an investor's equity portfolio or "round out" an existing portfolio.

Progressive Track Investments accounts may be held at Vienna, Va.-based FOLIOfn. FOLIOfn is an innovative online securities firm that provides a unique advisor platform, FOLIOAdvisor(SM), offering fully integrated, model- driven, portfolio and practice management services. Additionally, FOLIOAdvisor provides an industry-leading performance tracking feature permitting each model, and customer folio, to be compared graphically to any benchmark the investor chooses.

Since the portfolios are held in separate accounts, PTI provides advisors and their clients an opportunity to vote share proxies to support their values, if they so choose. FOLIOfn offers an online proxy voting tool allowing advisors and/or their clients to conveniently vote share proxies online.

In its SRI screening process, PAM excludes from consideration for investment any companies that manufacture tobacco, alcohol, firearms or nuclear weapons. Progressive Asset Management also excludes companies that: have meaningful revenues from gambling; have known operations with repressive governments such as the Sudan or Burma; or have significant military-related contracts with the U.S. Government. For all remaining companies, PAM applies a proprietary social ratings system that rewards companies that perform well in relation to their industry competitors on the following criteria: environmental responsibility; human rights and diversity issues; employee relations; product and worker safety issues; community impact; and corporate behavior & governance issues.

For larger accounts ($1 million and above), RIAs also have the option to use Aperio and PAM to create index-tracking portfolios based on client- directed social screening criteria or index benchmarks of their own choosing.

ABOUT PAM

Progressive Asset Management, Inc.(http://www.progressiveassetmanagement.com) was the first independent full- service investment brokerage in the US to specialize in socially responsible investing (SRI). Since 1987, PAM has developed innovative investment initiatives and products in the SRI arena, including their proprietary Shareholder Alert Service(TM), which supports investors who wish to track upcoming proxy votes in which they may participate. PAM also provides social screening services to third party money management firms. Progressive Asset Management is an NASD/SIPC member and a registered investment advisor.

Aperio Group, LLC is a registered investment advisor acting in a sub- advisory capacity for Progressive Track Investments(TM). FOLIOfn, through its wholly-owned, registered clearing broker-dealer subsidiary, FOLIOfnInvestments, Inc. (member, NASD/SIPC), offers an integrated brokerage and technology platform featuring its patented, state-of-the-art Folio trading capability, as well as execution, clearance and settlement services.

S&P/Citigroup and MSCI Indexes are trademarks created by Citigroup, Inc., The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc., and/or Morgan Stanley Capital International, none of which are affiliated with Progressive Track Investments or PAM.

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Progressive Asset Management, Inc.

Progressive Asset Management, Inc.

Providing individuals and institutions with access to Socially Responsible Investment options since 1987.

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