Fir Tree Closes Mortgage Opportunity Fund

NEW YORK, July 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Fir Tree, Inc., a leading investment
management firm based in New York, today announced the final closing of Fir
Tree Mortgage Opportunity Fund ("MOF"), a limited term opportunity fund which
totals approximately $400 million in capital and commitments. Fir Tree plans
to deploy the capital broadly across the mortgage opportunity set which
includes senior, high quality mortgage securities, structured products, and
other areas that are related to the fallout in the US mortgage market.

Fir Tree launched MOF in July of 2008 to provide dedicated exposure to
opportunities resulting from the collapse of the housing and related
structured products markets. Terms of the fund allow Fir Tree to call capital
from limited partner commitments as the managers identify investment
opportunities. In addition, limited partners have agreed to a multi-year
lock-up of their capital to allow Fir Tree to execute its investment strategy
through the current credit market cycle. "As patient investors, we wanted to
structure the Mortgage Opportunity Fund so that we could properly optimize our
LP's capital in 2009," said Andrew Fredman, Managing Partner of Fir Tree. "Our
decision to maintain a cautious approach in 2008 allowed us to take full
advantage of the opportunities unfolding in 2009."

Clinton Biondo, Managing Director added, "Our differentiated and diversified
investment strategy has allowed our Fund to establish scalable positions
across the spectrum of RMBS assets. Time will be our friend as market
fundamentals return in the medium to long term and we capture full value from
a carefully-managed portfolio."

With the closing of MOF, Fir Tree manages over $4 billion. Since its founding
in 1994, Fir Tree has pursued an opportunistic and value oriented approach by
investing in both equity and credit markets.

"In what is regarded as the most difficult market environment in decades, we
are pleased with MOF's initial performance and are extraordinarily grateful
for the support of many of our long standing limited partners and a select
group of new institutional partners. We look forward to building upon MOF's
early success and delivering attractive long term risk adjusted returns," said
Jim Walker, Managing Partner.

SOURCE Fir Tree, Inc.

for Media: Steve Bruce, Pen Pendleton or Victor Morales, all of Abernathy
MacGregor Group, +1-212-371-5999 for Fir Tree; or for Investors: Ben Ghriskey
of Fir Tree Partners, +1-212-659-4341