Investors seeking a decent return on their money know they must look beyond the stock market.

That’s particularly true of the baby boomers no longer prepared to wait a decade or two for their investments to rise along the gradual graph-line that brokers show when touting the market’s “long-term” appeal.

That’s why Ultima Energy Trust enjoys a growing profile these days. Three years after being reorganized with a new management team, Ultima’s appeal to investors is climbing like the charts detailing its high returns.

“We’ve spent the last three years building up the trust with good quality assets,” says Brian Gieni, president and chief executive officer.

Ultima Energy Trust is a Canadian oil and gas royalty trust based in Calgary. Its growth strategy focuses on acquiring and developing crude oil and natural gas properties – with an emphasis on light crude oil. Ultima is committed to achieving superior returns for its unit holders. In fact, it delivered a total return of 43 per cent in 2002.

That was an improvement over the still-impressive 2001 figure of 32 per cent. The year-to-date return for 2003 is 35 per cent.

Gieni also points to the reserve life index of Ultima properties – the number of remaining years for their flow of oil or gas.

“Ultima’s got a very long reserve life index,” he says. “A reserve life index is basically the sustainability of your distributions and production over a period of time.

“The average for the royalty trust sector is 9.8. Anything over 10 is good. Ultima’s reserve life index is 11.4 years.”

How does it do that? Well, Ultima starts by identifying and capturing investment opportunities expected to contribute to sustained profitability. Then it maintains momentum through sound financial and operating decisions made by highly competent people.

Those last three words are key to the trust’s success.

“We took over management of the trust in December 2000 and we started out by restructuring the management team,” says Gieni, who has a professional accounting degree, with finance and economics degrees, from the University of Saskatchewan. He also has 30 years of experience in senior management capacities.

In early 2001 came chief financial officer Ken Pinsky and chief operating officer Mike Wihak, both with extensive experience in the oil and gas industry.

The board was also greatly strengthened. Its members include chairman Marshall Williams, a former chairman of Alberta Treasury Branches and of TransAlta Corporation; David A. Tuer, president and CEO of Hawker Resources Inc., previously president and CEO of PanCanadian Petroleum and Alberta’s assistant deputy minister of energy; and Henry Lawrie, an advisor to the Ross Smith Energy Group and formerly chief accountant with the Alberta Securities Commission and a managing partner with Price Waterhouse in Calgary, Toronto and Dallas.

In fact, the whole Ultima board resembles a blue-chip corporate who’s who.

“Our strong board of directors is part of the trust we have built, to take it from being in a very weak position in 2000 to being in a very strong position now,” Gieni says. “We’ve also grown the production more than 300 per cent, from just over 2,000 barrels per day to approximately 10,000 barrels a day.”

Gieni acknowledges oilpatch investment carries some risk but the industry’s long-term prospects look healthy, particularly with a global demand and a more disciplined OPEC.

“I think the fundamentals are great. Oil has only been under $25 US WTI twice in this past year, and it’s been above $31 for four months. In the previous four or five years, the band has been $18 to $26, so that bodes very well for crude oil markets.”

He is particularly happy about Ultima’s involvement in the widely studied Weyburn oil project.

That’s where vast quantities of CO2 are being injected, both as a means of recovering incremental oil and disposing of environmentally detrimental carbon dioxide.

“It’s the equivalent of taking 241,000 cars off the road. We’re very proud to be involved in that project.”

Because Ultima is one of the smaller trusts, the market so far has tended to underestimate its potential – making it a good opportunity for investors before the word gets out. Its management and board are confident the trust’s market profile will soon rise like those graphs detailing its performance.

“Our vision,” Gieni says, “is to be one of the top trusts in the industry over the next few years, and we are very dedicated to that purpose.”

For investment and other information, go to www.ultimatrust.com; phone 403.264.5709 in Calgary; toll free 1.877.285.8462; fax: 403.264.6103; or e-mail ultima@ultimatrust.com