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Investor Glossary of Terms

Altus Andrews (Altus UK LLP) 
Altus Capital Planning
Altus Clayton
Altus Cost Consulting & Project Management
Altus Edwin Hill (Altus UK LLP)
Altus Geomatics 
Altus Group
Altus Group Research, Valuation & Advisory
Altus InSite
Altus Realty Tax Consulting
Distributable Cash
EBITDA
Fund (The Fund)
GAAP
Harfan Technologies
Income Trust
Marketing Research

Altus Andrews (Altus UK LLP)

Prior to joining the Altus Group, Andrews was a UK based Cost Consulting firm with 42 staff in four offices, including Bracknell, Leeds, Southampton and St. Albans. A leader in its field, Altus Andrews offers a comprehensive range of professional services through three primary service lines: Building Surveying; Project Management; and Quantity Surveying, as well as a Health & Safety consulting division - providing consulting and management services on infrastructure projects such as highways, schools and hospitals, as well as factories, retail parks, warehouses, multi unit buildings, hotels and nursing homes. Altus Andrews clients include commercial, residential and retail owners/developers, as well as pension funds, financial institutions, and also public and government agencies.

Altus Capital Planning

Altus Capital Planning , part of Altus Cost Consulting and Project Management, is dedicated to developing capital planning systems for organizations looking for effective strategies to manage their capital spending in real estate and infrastructure assets portfolios. Altus Capital Planning is the world leader in capital planning methodology implementation, process change and planning technology development to real estate and asset owners/managers who focus primarily in the MUSH (municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals) sectors. Altus Capital Planning’s advanced multi-dimensional and long-term approach provides complete life-cycle asset management and regulatory compliance. These features assist customers to more effectively plan, manage and ultimately invest capital allowing them to optimize the whole life performance of new and existing capital assets through strategic prioritization and alignment with corporate objectives.

Altus Clayton

Altus Clayton (now part of Altus Research, Valuation and Advisory) specializes in real estate market analysis, land use planning issues, consumer spending and borrowing research, and building products demand and currently employs 14 people. Over the years it has gained a reputation for intelligent and independent analysis and advice, based on extensive in-house expertise, a unique information base, leading edge analytical techniques and extensive contacts throughout Canada.

Altus Cost Consulting & Project Management

Founded in 1958, Altus Cost Consulting is the foremost professional quantity surveying firm and construction development consultant in Canada. The group provides a range of services designed to help clients understand and control construction and development costs, while still achieving the required standards, quality and functionality sought by all stakeholders. Clients are chiefly, but not exclusively, developers; architects; federal, provincial and municipal governments; universities; school boards; industrial and commercial clients; pension funds; insurance companies; trust companies; and other major lending institutions.

Altus Edwin Hill (Altus UK LLP)

With a solid reputation for over 50 years, Altus Edwin Hill is a national property consulting partnership based in London, UK that has earned a respected reputation as a top performer in its field, servicing a broad client base that includes blue chip corporations, real estate companies and investment funds. The company employs 132 staff composed of 17 partners, 72 other professional and para-professionals and 43 administrative staff, and has six offices based in some of the fastest-growing regions throughout the UK. With a focus on property owners and developers, Altus Edwin Hill's vision is to provide professional advice on all aspects of commercial property.

Altus Geomatics

Altus Geomatics is one of Western Canada’s leading providers of advanced geomatic solutions, specializing in oil and gas sector projects. With over 30 years of experience, Altus Geomatics combines the strengths of two of Western Canada’s best respected survey firms – All West Surveys Ltd, established in 1974 and Condon Group Surveys, established in 1969, to produce an valuable base of experience, shared knowledge and expertise.

Our team of professionals is capable of undertaking a variety of consulting projects using: global positioning technologies; geographic information systems; digital mapping and remote sensing; 3-D laser scanning; software and application development solutions.

We have developed a solid reputation for being able to develop client-specific solutions that utilize innovative technological applications to assure the highest level of quality and efficiency. Our proven experience working within aboriginal communities and in the northern areas of Canada also provide us with a solid understanding of the complex social, economic and political issues associated with projects impacted by land claims related issues.

Altus Group

Altus Group Income Fund operates in 14 countries.  It operates in Canada as Altus Group Limited, including Altus Research, Valuation and Advisory, Altus Cost Consulting, Altus Realty Tax Consulting and as Altus Marketing Research; in the UK as Altus UK LLP including Altus Andrews and Altus Edwin Hill; in the USA as Physical Planning Technologies Ltd.; and in the Asia Pacific Region as Altus Page Kirkland. 

Altus Group Research, Valuation and Advisory

Altus Research, Valuation and Advisory is regarded as Canada’s leading provider of real estate valuation-oriented research and advisory services. Originally formed in 1999 as a strategic alliance between 11 long-standing independent practices, the group’s services range from annual property/portfolio valuation and acquisition/disposition services through to customized market research and legal related support. Clients include pension funds, public real estate companies, REITs, financial institutions, private investors (both domestic and foreign), developers, various governmental bodies, law firms, insurance companies, trust companies and other major lending institutions.

Altus InSite

Altus InSite is considered the commercial real estate industry’s primary provider of national office market data and perspective. For over ten years, the company has collected and published real estate market data that is national, consistent, accurate, timely, credible, transparent and independent. Services range from conducting thorough market surveys through to providing independent market commentary and benchmarking, as well as feature access to Canada’s most comprehensive and up-to-date national online office market database. Clients include Canada's largest pension funds, public real estate companies and private investors.

Altus Realty Tax Consulting

Altus Realty Tax specializes in the field of real property assessment and taxation, ensuring that the real estate holdings of their clients are properly valued for tax purposes, so that they do not pay more than their fair share of property taxes annually. Altus Realty Tax Consulting offers a full spectrum of real estate tax consulting services that include assessment appeal (including expert witness); tax due diligence; vacancy rebate counsel; new construction/preliminary property assessment studies; as well as ongoing property tax management and budgeting. Clients include commercial, industrial, multi-residential and institutional clients across Canada and the UK.

Distributable Cash

Distributable cash does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP, but is a measure generally used by Canadian open-ended income funds as an indicator of financial performance.  The Fund defines distributable cash as earnings before interest, depreciation, amortization, income taxes, and after interest paid, capital expenditures, income taxes paid and contributions to any reserves that the Trustees of the Fund deem to be reasonable and necessary for the operation of the Fund.

The Fund's method of calculating distributable cash may differ from similar computations as reported by other similar entities and, accordingly, may not be comparable to distributable cash as reported by such entities.  The Fund believes that its distributable cash is a useful supplemental measure that may assist investors in assessing the return on their investment in units.

For unitholders, distributable cash flow is a liquidity measure that is an indicator of Altus' ability to generate cash flows at a level that can sustain or support an increase in monthly cash distributions paid. It is also the quantitative standard used throughout the investment community with respect to publicly traded partnerships.

EBITDA

EBITDA is an acronym for "earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization." It is calculated by taking operating income and adding back to it interest, depreciation and amortization expenses. EBITDA is used to analyze a company's operating profitability before non-operating expenses (interest) and non-cash charges (depreciation and amortization). As such, it can be used to analyze the profitability between companies and industries, eliminating the effects of financing and accounting decisions.

Fund (The Fund)

Refers to Altus Group Income Fund, an unincorporated, open-ended, limited-purpose trust established under the laws of the Province of Ontario.

GAAP

These are accounting guidelines, formulated by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) Accounting Standards Committee, that govern how businesses report their financial statements to the public.

Harfan Technologies

Harfan is a leader in the development and delivery of proprietary infrastructure management software products, currently used by North American municipalities. Harfan’s software allows key decision makers to set priorities, capture client requests, issue work orders and track roads, water, sewer and stormwater networks, all in compliance with relevant safety and accounting standards. This software can be used by cities, counties and public utilities to generate financial scenarios and capital improvement plans and to lay out rehabilitation and replacement plans for infrastructure.

Income Trust

Income Trusts, also known as Income Funds, are trusts generally structured to own debt and equity of an underlying entity that carries on an active business, or a royalty in revenues generated by the assets thereof. The income trust sector is comprised of the following four categories:

• Business Trusts
• REITs
• Resource Trusts
• Utility Trusts

Income trusts have become popular with investors because earnings from the business are distributed to investors each month or quarter. Given their potential to deliver higher yields than bonds, income trusts have increased in popularity. The current low interest rate environment has made these potentially higher yields attractive even when compared with cash investments such as GICs.

Income trusts eliminate or significantly reduce corporate tax. The trust pays little or no tax on its earnings because most of the income is distributed directly to the unitholders. Hence, distributions to income trust investors are generally higher than dividends from an equivalent corporate entity.

Altus Marketing Research provides retail research and market analysis to help clients better understand market trends, including growth prospects, the competitive environment, customer profiles, customer behaviours and overall customer satisfaction. Altus Marketing Research has assembled significant data relating to a number of competitive sectors that gives the company an edge in identifying optimal locations and determining market potential.