London –8 January 2007 – WM Performance Services, one of the world's leading investment performance measurement businesses and the European performance measurement division of State Street Corporation, today released its preliminary Charity Fund results for the year of 2006. WM's charity fund survey is the largest and longest-running study of UK charity fund performance and covers more than two-thirds of the UK charity fund market.

According to the survey, charity funds ended the year on a positive note, gaining 4.7 percent during the fourth quarter on the back of strong European equity returns to close up slightly more than 12 percent for the year. The return for the last three years, the most typical performance assessment period, is 14.5 percent per annum. This represents a real return (i.e., return in excess of retail price inflation) in the last three years of around 11 percent per annum for the average charity.

Across the full year, the highest major equity returns were recorded in the UK (16.7 percent) and Europe (20.1 percent). Double-digit returns were also available in the Pacific Rim (12.6 percent) and Emerging Markets (18 percent). Although the North American market returned 16 percent in local currency terms, the weakness in the dollar meant sterling investors only recorded a slightly positive return (1.7 percent). The lowest performing equity region was Japan: Japanese equities rose by 6.6 percent in local currency terms, but a weak yen resulted in a fall of 7.4 percent for a sterling investor.

UK Government Bonds, Conventional and Index Linked produced returns between 1 and 2 percent for the year, whilst Property remained a consistently strong performer throughout 2006, finishing at more than 17 percent. Charity funds constrained by an income requirement produced on average 0.5 percent better returns for the full year than those which have no such constraints. This occurred because funds which were constrained by income held less of their assets in North America and Japan, and also recorded superior returns in UK equities.

"After a strong start, markets fell back in the second quarter due to inflation concerns before recovering over the second half of the year," said Michael Walsh, managing director of WM Performance Services."More significantly, the total charity return for 2006 is the fourth consecutive double-digit annual return. A generally favourable economic backdrop coupled with positive corporate news and merger and acquisition activity supported equity markets, and as the average charity has just over three-quarters of its assets invested in equities, this proved highly beneficial."

Notes to Editors
WM Performance Services is one of the world's leading investment performance measurement businesses and is the European performance measurement division of State Street Corporation. Based in Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt and Zurich, WM measures more than 5,000 investment portfolios based in the key global investment centres and provides an extensive range of services to support better investment decisions.

State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT ) is the world's leading specialist in providing institutional investors with investment servicing, investment management and investment research and trading. With $11.3 trillion in assets under custody and $1.6 trillion in assets under management (as at 30 September 2006), State Street operates in 26 countries and more than 100 markets worldwide. For more information, visit State Street's Web site at www.statestreet.com .