3rd Quarter 2010

FPA CRESCENT FUND

LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS

Dear Shareholders:

Overview
After a tough August, the stock market turned around in September, erasing its year-to-date losses. Crescent
returned 7.4% in the third quarter and 5.3% year-to-date, versus the S&P 500’s 11.3% and 3.9%, respectively.
More detailed returns of both the Fund and comparative indices can be found at the end of this commentary.
Periodic volatility (market or portfolio) and/or poor relative performance typically induce poor client
buy/sell decisions; however, the market’s ups and downs incubate opportunity that may not be reflected in returns
for some period of time. The market will periodically exhibit volatility and good managers will occasionally lag
the broader market. We accept that volatility and believe the only way to outperform in the long term is to be
willing to underperform in the short term. That belief may come easier to us than to our clients/partners, however,
so we devote a lot of time to the consideration and writing of our quarterly shareholder letters. This allocation of
precious time away from our day-to-day research and portfolio management responsibilities allows us to look
beyond the immediate tasks of today so that we may ponder tomorrow, giving us perspective and, at the same time,
educating and informing our clients. We feel time dedicated to these commentaries is well spent, because a well-
informed shareholder is a better partner, one more likely to stick through the thin while awaiting the thick.
Investing is an evolutionary process. We now analyze businesses, products, asset classes, and industries
that did not exist twenty years ago. We therefore regularly take it upon ourselves to explain our action or, at times,
inaction. Though we evolve as investors, our goal, philosophy and strategy remain constant. Up to this point, the
only way to have gained a deep understanding of our thought process was to have read our past commentaries.
Since not much has changed in either the world or your portfolio in the most recent quarter, we thought we would
reallocate the time normally spent on our shareholder commentary to publishing the goal, core beliefs, and
philosophies that guide our management of the Contrarian strategy, including the FPA Crescent Fund. The attached
FPA Contrarian Policy Statement summarizes our investment approach, principles, and core beliefs, and we
encourage all of our clients to read it. We also continue to recommend the reading of our past commentaries for
the most complete understanding of the Contrarian strategy.

Investments
Western Digital
We recently added Western Digital Corporation (WDC), the second largest producer of Hard Disk Drives
(HDDs), to the portfolio. Its stock price had fallen almost 50% from its high earlier this year to the low-to-mid
$20s where it was trading around 6x trailing twelve-month earnings (fully taxed). If one were to adjust for their
roughly $10 of net cash per share, the adjusted P/E would have been less than 4x our purchase price. Clearly, the
market does not see WDC’s recent earnings as sustainable. We don’t either, but we do believe their earnings might
stabilize at more than $3 per share and trough around the $2 level during this cycle.
Investors fear that tablet computing (e.g., iPad), which does not use a disk drive to store information, will
cannibalize the HDD-centric netbook computer market. We have assumed that the netbook market will decline
by about 75% over the next couple years — from today’s 2.7% of industry sales to 0.7%. Tablet computing will

1
indeed eat into the netbook market, but that certainty has translated into market fear and irrational stock prices
for HDD companies, including WDC.
Interestingly, the tablet market is not all negative for the HDD companies. Tablets, and other wireless
devices such as smart phones, drive users to download new applications or apps. These apps reside on the internet
and are stored on HDDs. Thus, the more wireless devices sold more apps created increased demand for
HDD storage, particularly as more storage intensive video files are downloaded. We now hear that sophisticated
users of tablets are purchasing external hard drives to back up files that can no longer be stored on a 64GB flash
chip.
We cannot ignore the other real concern that the key market players (including Seagate Technology,
Hitachi, and WDC, which together have more than 80% market share) are going to cut each other’s throats by
slashing prices to either retain or gain market share. In 2004, the industry, led by Maxtor (subsequently acquired
by Seagate), slashed prices to capture share, and nearly every disk drive company experienced a decline in profits,
with some losing huge amounts. WDC and Seagate were the only two companies that stayed reasonably profitable,
but even those two saw their respective operating profits decline 13% and 28%.
While the iPad tablet risk gets much of the headlines, we believe the competitive risks and lower selling
prices could potentially do the most damage to WDC’s valuation. However, if the industry remains reasonably
rational, WDC has the potential to earn in excess of $3 a share over the cycle, fully taxed, leading us to conclude
that the intrinsic value could be in excess of $40 per share, if the market values it at a 10-11 P/E plus the cash. At
our cost, we conclude that the upside opportunity more than justifies the potential downside, particularly since
we believe that the upside is more likely. We expect continued short-term volatility as the competitive environment
creates fear.

Closing
During the quarter we welcomed a new analyst to our team. Ravi Mehra joins us from Shamrock Capital
Advisors where he gained useful experience working with company management’s to undertake shareholder
friendly capital, compensation and strategic plans. Ravi has blended seamlessly into our team and has already made
his presence felt in the portfolio.
A value investing strategy is common, but the number of tools we have at our disposal to express our view
differentiates us. We have a greater variety of places where we can commit capital, improving our ability to find
compelling opportunities. The diversity of our approach also means that should a given asset class, market cap,
industry, or region underperform, our total portfolio will be less likely to suffer as negatively. Meanwhile, we will
retain the opportunity to take advantage of such dislocation given our typical cash residual.
Respectfully submitted,

Steven Romick
President
October 18, 2010

2
 THE FPA CONTRARIAN POLICY STATEMENT
(including the FPA Crescent Fund)
OVERVIEW

GOAL
The FPA Contrarian strategy (including the FPA Crescent Fund) endeavors to provide, over the long-term,
an equity-like return with less risk than the stock market.

PHILOSOPHY
n Absolute value investors. We seek genuine bargains rather than relatively attractive securities.

n Alignment of interests. We invest our money alongside yours, and we act as stewards of our shared

capital.
n Broad mandate. We invest across the capital structure, asset classes, market caps, industries, and

geographies. We are willing to hold cash.

n Long-term focus. We believe the best way to accomplish our goals is to accept short-term

underperformance in exchange for long-term success.

n Macroeconomic view. We incorporate an understanding (sometimes limited) of the economic

environment.
n Volatility. If we have performed our research correctly, volatility creates opportunity, not risk.

n Downside protection / Risk minimization. We aim to protect capital first and create long-term equity-like

returns second. We cannot eliminate risk, but we conduct ourselves by hoping for the best, while preparing
for the worst.

PROCESS
n We seek the out-of-favor, unloved, or misunderstood. We are, in a word, “contrarian.”

n We recognize that returns will not just be driven by what we own, but also by what we do not own.

n We invest in securities that we believe offer advantageous upside/downside characteristics, and we focus

on five categories:
1) Long Equity — 3:1s, Compounders, Shorter-Term Opportunities, Sum-of-the-Parts, Intra-Company
Arbitrages.
2) Short Equity — Deteriorating Businesses, Balance Sheet Issues, Paired Trades, Intra-Company
Arbitrages.
3) Credit — Performing Credit, High Yield, Distressed.
4) Other — Illiquid Investments and other Special Situations.
5) Cash — A residual of our investment process, rather than a macro-driven rationale.
n We invest after conducting thorough research.

We believe our flexible approach greatly enhances the likelihood that we will deliver an equity-like return
with less risk over the long-term.

3
 THE FPA CONTRARIAN POLICY STATEMENT
(including the FPA Crescent Fund)
GOAL
The FPA Contrarian strategy (including the FPA Crescent Fund) endeavors to provide, over the long-term,
equity-like return with less risk than the stock market. We think of long-term as five to seven years. We define
equity rates of return as the returns provided by a broad equity benchmark, such as the S&P 500, Wilshire 5000,
or Russell 3000. We view risk primarily as the likelihood of suffering a permanent impairment of capital, on a
portfolio basis.
The terms “long-term” and “equity-like return” have an exactness and measurability. The term “risk,” on
the other hand, is inherently imprecise, commands imprecision and its meaning is different from one individual
to another. Risk stems from the uncertainty that exists in the world. We (along with the rest of humanity) simply
do not know what will happen, so we are left with trying to guard against all manner of eventualities, while
recognizing that more things can happen than will happen.

PHILOSOPHY
We are absolute value investors.
We invest our money alongside yours — an alignment of interests we maintain across FPA. We view
ourselves as the guardians of the capital entrusted to us. We manage the various investment products in the
Contrarian strategy, including its public fund FPA Crescent, in a way that makes us comfortable having our
family and friends commit their savings to it. Should our portfolios lag, we will most likely feel more pain than
our shareholder partners.
We view ourselves as pragmatists with a healthy respect for what we do not know. We are neither optimists
nor pessimists, as we invariably find ourselves hoping for the best, while preparing for the worst.
Value investing is a familiar discipline, but Contrarian pursues a relatively unique and advantaged strategy.
Contrarian is unique because we have an unfettered mandate, we invest on an absolute basis, we consider the
macroeconomic environment, and we have a long-term orientation.

Absolute Value Investing

We seek genuine bargains, not relatively attractive securities.
We invest only in positions that we believe offer a compelling economic risk/reward proposition on an
absolute basis. If prospective investments do not meet that requirement, then we wait until they do. We have no
interest in merely buying the inexpensive. We want to purchase a stock at a substantial discount to that company’s
worth, or intrinsic value.i Our broad mandate gives us more tools to pursue an “absolute” path to value investing,
where success is measured by positive returns. We reject the “relative value” path, where some may declare
victory when the stock market has declined 40% and they lost just 35% of their client’s principal.

Unfettered Mandate
Contrarian operates with one of the industry’s most expansive charters. Unlike most traditional money
managers, we can invest almost anywhere, using practically any instrument. We have proven our ability to
successfully invest across a company’s capital structure, as well as in a variety of market capitalizations, industries,
geographies, and other asset classes, while frequently holding cash. Our partners’ support and understanding of
our process allows us to invest in those assets that appear most attractive on an absolute basis without regard for
style box or conventional wisdom. Our investor base allows us to make the asset allocation decisions and to take

i Intrinsic value: The present value of future cash flows or the price a knowledgeable and possibly strategic buyer might pay
for the business.

4
 THE FPA CONTRARIAN POLICY STATEMENT
(including the FPA Crescent Fund)
advantage of compelling opportunities, no matter where we might find them. Sometimes those opportunities are
in places other managers cannot or will not go.
We believe our freedom to go most places (without the requirement to do so) along with our willingness
to hold cash, gives us a significant long-term advantage. For example, if large-cap stocks appear expensive, we
can buy small-caps (1998-99). If high yield bonds appear less expensive than equities, we can increase our
exposure to the former at the expense of the latter (2008-09). If the shares of foreign-domiciled companies appear
less expensive than their U.S. counterparts, then we may invest more money overseas (2010). If common stocks
and corporate bonds appear priced to perfection with little regard for exogenous risks, then our cash residual may
build (2004-2008) as we wait for opportunities to invest with less downside and more upside. This approach to
cash holdings is discussed further in our 2004 Special Commentary, The Case for Cash.ii We believe our investment
flexibility greatly enhances the likelihood that we will deliver an equity-like return with less risk over the long-
term.

Long-Term Focus
We believe the only way to accomplish our goal is to, at times, accept short-term underperformance. We
measure our investment term in years, rather than in quarters, months, or days. We do not carry the bogey of
excelling each calendar year on our back. We consider five to seven years a market cycle. What happens over any
fraction thereof lies outside our capability (and concern). Over shorter periods, temporary excesses in both the
securities market and the economy have a tendency to distort reality and cloud understanding. Recent examples
of such distortions would include the tech-stock/internet insanity of 1997-2000, and the housing bubble that
reached its zenith in 2005-2006.
We avoid the temptation to look out further than five to seven years by remembering John Maynard
Keynes’ observation that “in the long run we are all dead.” Nevertheless, great patience may prove necessary even
in intermediate-term time frames.
As a history lesson, let us view the five-year period beginning January 1, 1998. Small capitalization stocks
traded at a 20% discount to their larger capitalization brethren, despite what we believed to be better growth
prospects. We therefore heavily tilted our portfolio to smaller companies, but the discount to larger companies
expanded to 40%, yielding a temporary decline in portfolio value. We also avoided internet stocks, which further
depressed our near-term performance. So Crescent, as a net-of-fees proxy for Contrarian, lost 3.7% over the next
two years. Our results looked bleak compared to the S&P 500 Index, which appreciated 55.5% over that same
period. Most investors (including foundations, endowments, pensions, and consultants) in professionally managed
investment products (e.g., mutual funds, hedge funds, and separately managed accounts) make buy-sell decisions
predicated on recent performance — and we had underperformed the market by 5,919 basis points! We had
unintentionally tested our clients’ patience — and most fled to those portfolio managers who they believed offered
better future returns.
As a result, Crescent lost about 90% of its assets due to shareholders redeeming their investments from its
early 1998 peak to its trough in early 2000. (Maybe more would have left, but we figured some of them might
have forgotten they had invested with us.) The S&P 500 then declined in each of the next three years, while
Crescent’s few remaining stalwart holders (including ourselves) enjoyed consistent gains. Looking back over a
five-year period, a Crescent shareholder who invested $1,000 at the beginning of 1998 would have ended 2002
with $1,409. A similar $1,000 investment in the S&P 500 Index would have declined to $972. A Crescent
shareholder who capitulated at year-end 1999 and invested in the S&P 500 at the beginning of 2000, would have

ii The Case for Cash, (http://www.fpafunds.com/news_040423_case_for_cash.asp)

5
 THE FPA CONTRARIAN POLICY STATEMENT
(including the FPA Crescent Fund)
had just $625 remaining, a devastating loss and less than half what they would have earned if they had remained
in Crescent.
Patience as an investment virtue may only be attained through education. We believe you should only invest
with a manager whose philosophy and process you understand. Otherwise, you could find yourself unable to
stomach what will certainly be more challenging periods.
Current and prospective Contrarian investors need ask themselves how they would have behaved if they
had been invested with us in our difficult 1998-99 period. We will likely underperform in the future as well. We
doubt, however, that such poor relative performance will be of the same magnitude, since back then, growth stocks
were trading at the highest levels seen in the twentieth century, with valuation multiples measured not in earnings,
in some cases, but in revenues.
We believe the best clients/shareholders are those who understand our goal, philosophy, and
process/strategy. We provide quarterly shareholder letters, special commentaries, speeches, a soon-to-be-published
core values declaration (The FPA Way) and this policy statement as part of a constant effort to educate those who
have entrusted us with their capital. We urge you to read all of them (available at www.fpafunds.com), because
only then can you gain the confidence to have us as your manager.

Macro-Economic Considerations
Unlike many value investors, we incorporate an understanding (sometimes limited) of the macroeconomic
environment in our security analysis and portfolio construction. We recognize that we must consider bigger-
picture extremes as we assess a company’s current and prospective intrinsic value.
We seek to understand the company and industry metrics of an investment and how that business and its
valuation might fare against our macroeconomic views. This has caused us to overweight certain industries and
asset classes, and, at times, to completely avoid others.iii
Whether we use a top-down or bottom-up approach will depend on the company, industry, valuation,
economy, and our conviction in our assessment of each.

Risk — Permanent Loss of Capital or Volatility?

We cannot eliminate risk, but we seek to identify it, understand it, minimize it, and be adequately
compensated for it.
The word risk has no precise meaning in an investing context. In order to avoid confusion, we must clearly
explain what type of risk we mean. There are a plethora of risks to consider when investing. The list of potential
pitfalls include: credit, currency, obsolescence, fraud, sovereign, interest rate, inflation, litigation, expropriation,
customer concentration, vendor disruption, competition, economic, balance sheet, political, permanent
impairment, mark-to-market losses, and more — many more.
Risk goes hand-in-hand with investing. If you do not like the stock market and choose to remain in cash,
then you will have assumed inflation risk. If inflation subsequently moves higher, the value of your cash erodes.
Every choice (and doing nothing is still a choice) trades one risk for another. If we tried to avoid all risk, then we
would have little chance of accomplishing our goal. So in a world where risk is unavoidable, the Contrarian
mission, on a portfolio basis, is to minimize the risk of permanent capital impairment.

iii
See Elephants in the Room (http://www.fpafunds.com/news_09252008_elephant.asp) and The Raw Deal
(http://www.fpafunds.com/news_050708_valueinvesting.pdf), as well as the following quarterly commentary where the
subject is discussed (http://www.fpafunds.com/downloads/crescent/June%2030,%202008.pdf.)
6
 THE FPA CONTRARIAN POLICY STATEMENT
(including the FPA Crescent Fund)
We reject volatility as a measure of risk. (Using volatility to measure risk is a bit like using a thermostat
to measure a car’s speed. You’ll get a number, but not much understanding.) However, we know a highly volatile
investment may not serve our clients well, since large fluctuations in price may create stress, causing our clients
to invest in or cash-out at precisely the wrong times. Lower volatility is not the aim of Contrarian’s investment
process, but it has proven to be a natural by-product.iv
Investors need to understand their own risk tolerances — both psychological and practical — instead of
adopting a theoretical model prescribed by age bracket or wealth. Although we view risk as the potential permanent
loss of capital, we recognize that other investors may feel differently, and that those investors might let volatility
drive their investment decisions. Volatility creates extreme price movements, during which an investor can choose
to buy or sell.v We believe our investors must be aware of how they will react to price volatility. We are not
oblivious to the institutional imperative, however, and we realize that most individual and institutional investors
can find themselves in the awkward position of defending investment decisions to their clients, employers,
spouses, or even themselves for holding a stock that keeps declining, or even for owning any common stocks in
a declining market.
A Morningstar study of mutual fund investors’ trading demonstrated that there is a financial cost to trading
decisions triggered by market volatility. In addition to reinforcing the established fact that mutual fund investors
have a “tendency to buy high and sell low,” the study also demonstrated that investor returns generally lagged those
of funds’ published total returns” and pointed to a fund’s volatility as “a key determinant in whether its investor
returns are good or bad.” The findings are not surprising. Letting volatility dictate investment decisions has
proven the bane of many mutual fund (and stock) investors.vi We want our investors’ return experience to closely
match our publicly reported returns.
We seek to have Contrarian provide a better-than-average experience for its clients/shareholders. We can
have neither pride nor sense of accomplishment if our clients, the very people we are in business to provide a
service to, do not appropriately benefit from the relationship.
Although we do not directly manage volatility and can offer no assurances, we believe our approach gives
us a good chance of providing a less volatile ride than the stock market. We hope our strategy, Contrarian’s return
pattern and our communications with you improve the odds that your return more closely mirrors the strategy’s
composite return.
More important, regardless of the environment, we aim to distinguish ourselves by using volatility to our
advantage, rather than our detriment. Instead of composing a portfolio designed to mimic the performance of some
benchmark or index, we utilize a deeply held contrarian philosophy oriented toward pushing back on a rising
market by reducing exposure (thus allowing cash to increase), and conversely, leaning into a falling market and
spending that cash to opportunistically buy inexpensive securities.

iv We believe most individuals and institutions should have their long-term savings managed by those who seek to protect
capital before pushing to make a return on that capital. The Contrarian team, therefore, looks down (to see what risk lies
below) before looking up (to see what opportunities might lie amongst the stars). Once we have assured ourselves that capital
can be preserved, we then seek ways to grow real after-tax wealth at an acceptable rate. This strategy is aimed at allowing
our investors to — at a minimum — win by not losing. We have accomplished that goal over our first seventeen years, and
will work to continue to do so prospectively. Cumulative experience (rather than repetitive) and a deeper pool of analytical
talent should help.
v Most investors, consultants, and advisors have greater apprehension with regards to the volatility associated with downward
price movements. Upside “vol” is more welcomed — except by short sellers.
vi Volatility, the bane of many an investor. We lay out an example of this in our 2007 Q1 FPA Crescent Commentary and
further elucidate on the topic in our 2010 Q2 FPA Crescent Commentary.

7
 THE FPA CONTRARIAN POLICY STATEMENT
(including the FPA Crescent Fund)
Hopefully, we have made it evident that we spend a disproportionate amount of our time evaluating and
managing investment, company-specific, and economic risk. We believe that if we look to limit the downside of
your portfolio, the upside will take care of itself.

Upside/Downside
We invest your money in securities that have what we believe to be advantageous upside/downside
characteristics; that is, we want to make sure that we could potentially make a multiple of what we could potentially
lose. In managing our portfolios, we accept that we will not always win, and that “good” bets will sometimes be
lost. What we seek to avoid is making bad bets. In addition to targeting asymmetric payoffs, we try to improve
our odds further by conducting deep due diligence to gain a clear understanding of the underlying business and
its industry, and then, wherever possible, applying some differentiated knowledge.

PROCESS
There is always a wide array of prospective investments from which to choose. We have to narrow that
universe to something more manageable, and we begin by establishing five categories: Long Equity, Short Equity,
Credit, Liquidity and a smaller “Other” category. We invest in an opportunistic manner, based on our view of the
world and the businesses/situations that we understand. We look for what is out of favor. We look for bad news.
We take into account what the landscape is today and how it might change over time, both organically and through
exogenous events. We mostly hold our own counsel, speaking to relatively few “investment professionals” outside
FPA. We prefer to spend more time with people on Main Street rather than Wall Street because we believe the
interaction improves our understanding of businesses and industries. Then we read, read, read. And then, we read
some more.
Next, we decide which categories might offer the best opportunities for us to reach our established longer-
range goal of market-like return with less than market risk. We then devote our time accordingly.
As we seek to gain comfort with a given investment, we determine what we need to know to prove to
ourselves the correctness of the original thesis that drew our interest and triggered further research. We try to
support our view in a host of ways, including reading current and historic SEC filings and conference call
transcripts, reviewing pertinent periodicals, studying the competition, establishing a model, etc. We then work to
gain a knowledge edge, an understanding of the business or industry that may not be universal. Some companies
are followed too well for us to differentiate ourselves in this fashion, but we certainly try. Such due diligence may
take the form of conversations with ex-employees, vendors, industry consultants, etc.
We recognize that we must consider bigger-picture extremes as we evaluate a company’s current and
prospective intrinsic value. Our efforts have helped us identify areas of opportunity (distressed debt that had priced
in a depression by early 2009), while avoiding others (financials for much of the ‘00s because prices failed to
reflect the risk of subprime debt proliferation and the interrelated housing bubble). Admittedly, we lack clarity
most of the time, and have zero ability to forecast our economy with any reasonable measure of precision, but we
have felt capable of protecting clients from the extremes. For instance, we could not predict the magnitude or
timing of the U.S. housing market collapse that lead the world economy into a deep recession. We did, however,
realize that our economy had overindulged amid the housing excess, and that the risk to the system was likely
greater than reflected at the time. Knowing the Titanic is unsinkable does not keep it afloat after steering into an
iceberg. We study the macro to avoid a similar fate.

8
 THE FPA CONTRARIAN POLICY STATEMENT
(including the FPA Crescent Fund)
Contrarian finds its opportunities in the following five categories and sub-groups, recognizing that our
returns will not just be driven by what we own, but also by what we do not own.

1) Long Equityvii
n 3:1s — Our traditional bread and butter. An investment in a business possibly of a lesser quality than that

of a compounder, but still a good business and likely to have greater upside potential. We prefer to invest
in these businesses when the upside/downside (what we can make vs. what we can lose) has a ratio of
3:1 or better.
n Compounders — The world’s great businesses. Unquestionable competitive strength. Solid balance

sheets. Shareholder-centric management. We think of these as infinite duration bonds with rising coupons.
n Shorter-Term Opportunities — Identified catalyst(s) expected to have positive impact on value of

underlying business and therefore its stock price. For example, operational turnarounds, balance sheet
optimization, corporate action, etc.
n Sum of the Parts — The value of a company’s disparate parts significantly exceeds its current stock price.

n Intra-Company Arbitrages

o Long one share class of company while being short another of the same company, when we discover

and believe an ephemeral market inefficiency to exist.

o Long a corporate parent or holding company and short one or more of the underlying subsidiaries,

creating a stub equity position that is valued at a deep discount to its intrinsic value.

2) Short Equityviii
n Deteriorating Businesses — Fundamental business metrics are in decline and its stock price fails to take

that into account.

n Balance Sheet Issues — Certain asset accounts are overstated, creating the circumstance where operating

cash flow may fall significantly short of net income.

n Paired Trades — Shorting a company to hedge, in part, a long equity (typically one of the above)

position’s industry-specific risk.

n Intra-Company Arbitrages — discussed in the Long Equity section.

vii We now have the ability to convert our typical 13G to a 13D filing. We can now add activism as a periodic defensive tool
should the need arise. We expect 13D filings to be rare, but there have been times in the past when it would have been
advantageous and we expect that will be the case, on occasion, in the future.
viii Shorting appears on the surface to be a reckless pursuit. It affords no tax efficiency because the IRS treats gains as
ordinary income. The asymmetry of return certainly works against you as well, as one’s gain cannot exceed 100%, but
theoretically, one’s losses can be infinite. Nevertheless, we believe shorting offers certain advantages. Judicious shorting
helps dampen a portfolio’s volatility, which in turn helps reduce the mark-to-market risk that may scare certain investors
out of the market at inopportune times. We also find that shorting stocks helps keep us honest when looking at longs. We
maintain healthy circumspection as we continually observe company managements playing accounting games, overstating
prospects, and more. Shorting has kept us sharp and has frequently allowed us to reach broader conclusions. For example,
the analysis and subsequent shorting of Lehman Brothers caused us to continue to avoid all other financials and forced us
to consider the risks that might exist in our own custodian. We may also periodically harvest losses to offset portfolio gains,
thereby improving tax efficiency. We may reenter those trades after thirty one days to avoid a wash sale, or, in cases where
an entire sector is overvalued, we might take a short position in another company in the same industry.

9
 THE FPA CONTRARIAN POLICY STATEMENT
(including the FPA Crescent Fund)
3) Credit
n Performing Credits — Credit instruments that have a yield-to-maturity reasonably in excess of U.S.

Treasuries of comparable maturity and the holder (lender) will most likely receive all interest and
principal. Although some credit risk exists, we generally consider these investments as fixed income, with
an increase in interest rates being the greatest risk.
n High Yield Bonds — Bonds of corporations we believe have some chance (but a relatively low

probability) of needing to restructure its debt. These bonds generally have a much higher yield than the
Performing Credits. We view these investments more akin to equities than we do fixed income, i.e.,
more credit risk than interest rate risk.
n Distressed Debt — Corporate debt that has either defaulted or that we believe has reasonable odds of

being restructured, either voluntarily or via default. Even though these were originated as fixed income
securities, we regard our distressed investments as equity.

4) Other
n Illiquid investments — We periodically make illiquid investments but only when the following conditions

are met:
o Such investments allow us to take advantage of opportunities unavailable to us in the public markets.

o Mutual fund: Crescent’s position size will remain small enough such that a 75% decline in assets will

still leave us with an illiquid position of reasonable size.

o Separate accounts: clients grant us permission to make such an investment.

o Special Situations

5) Liquidityix
n Liquidity (including cash) is a residual of our investment process, rather than a macro-driven rationale.

Liquidity helps protect the downside and gives us the ability to take advantage of future opportunities.

SUMMARY
We would like Contrarian and FPA to be known as respected value investors. We would be honored to
continue to earn, over many years, the respect of our clients and peers. At the end of the day, we are investors and
we do what we love.
We are value investors because it makes sense to us, fits our risk-averse personalities, and appeals to our
sense of intellectual honesty. We believe that value investing is the best means (that we are aware of) to preserve
capital and to continue to provide adequate growth over the long term.
Contrarian’s sound and battle-tested strategy, dedication, and diligence will fall short at times as we will
occasionally suffer mark-to-market declines and poor relative performance. We know of no way to achieve our
long-term goals without periodically disappointing our shareholders and clients. We hope that through good
communication, we will make clear to our clients what to expect from an investment with us, and trust that it will
help you make appropriate decisions regarding your investment in the Contrarian strategy.
We thank our long-term clients whose trust we have earned, but whose patience we have tested.
The Contrarian Team
ix Cash vs liquidity. We make a distinction between cash and liquidity, although we sometimes use them interchangeably. Cash
includes the cash received from securities sold short and, as a result, can appear to overstate the cash balance. Therefore,
we believe liquidity, which nets that out, is the more appropriate measure.
10
 The discussion of Fund investments represents the views of the Fund’s managers at the time of this report
and are subject to change without notice. References to individual securities are for informational purposes only
and should not be construed as recommendations to purchase or sell individual securities. While the Fund’s
managers believe that the Fund’s holdings are value stocks, there can be no assurance that others will consider
them as such. Further, investing in value stocks presents the risk that value stocks may fall out of favor with
investors and underperform growth stocks during given periods.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT DISCLOSURE

As mutual fund managers, one of our responsibilities is to communicate with shareholders in an open and
direct manner. Insofar as some of our opinions and comments in our letters to shareholders are based on current
management expectations, they are considered “forward-looking statements” which may or may not be accurate
over the long term. While we believe we have a reasonable basis for our comments and we have confidence in
our opinions, actual results may differ materially from those we anticipate. You can identify forward-looking
statements by words such as “believe,” “expect,” “may,” “anticipate,” and other similar expressions when
discussing prospects for particular portfolio holdings and/or the markets, generally. We cannot, however, assure
future results and disclaim any obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements, whether as a result
of new information, future events, or otherwise. Further, information provided in this report should not be
construed as a recommendation to purchase or sell any particular security.

11
 PORTFOLIO CHARACTERISTICS AND PERFORMANCE
September 30, 2010

Portfolio Characteristics
FPA Crescent Russell 2500 S&P 500 Barclays Capital
Gov’t/Credit
Stocks
Price/Earnings TTM 12.1x 23.7x 15.9x
Price/Earnings 2010 est. 11.8x 21.4x 15.1x
Price/Book 1.55x 1.85x 2.10x
Dividend Yield 1.9% 1.4% 2.0%
Average Weighted Market Cap (billion) $51.5 $2.4 $81.2
Median Market Cap (billion) $20.2 $0.61 $9.8
Bonds
Duration (years) 1.4 4.7
Maturity (years) 1.7 6.6
Yield-to-Worst 4.0% 2.6%
Yield-to-Worst (corporate only) 7.9%

Portfolio Analysis
10 Largest Holdings Portfolio Composition
Ensco plc 4.4 Asset Class
Aon 3.8 Common Stocks, Long 54.4%
Covidien 3.7 Common Stocks, Short 4.4%
Occidental Petroleum 3.1 Other 0.7%
Stanwich Mortgage Loan Trust* 3.0 Corporate Fixed Income 14.4%
CIT Group Bonds* 2.9 Mortgages 3.1%
Wal-Mart Stores 2.2 Cash Plus Liquidity** 23.0%
Vodafone Group plc 2.2
Anheuser-Busch InBev 2.0 Geographic
Omnicare 2.0 U.S. 59.2%
Total 29.3% Europe 19.6%
* Various issues Other 1.8%
Excludes U.S. Gov’t Securities ** Cash liquidity defined as cash and high quality, liquid, limited
term securities

Performance Statistics
FPA Crescent 60% R2500/ Russell 2500 S&P 500
40% BCGC
Statistics
Gain in Up Months - Cumulative 352.1% 352.5% 541.7% 445.4%
Upside Participation 99.9% 65.0% 79.0%
Loss in Down Months - Cumulative -161.3% -196.7% -350.9% -297.6%
Downside Participation 82.0% 46.0% 54.2%
Up Month - Average 2.6% 2.6% 4.2% 3.4%
Down Month - Average -2.2% -2.7% -4.5% -3.9%
Delta between Up/Down months 4.8% 5.3% 8.7% 7.3%
Worst Month -13.9% -13.9% -21.5% -16.8%
Best Month 12.6% 9.3% 15.4% 9.8%
Standard Deviation 10.72 11.31 18.74 15.51
Sharpe Ratio (using 5% risk-free rate) 0.55 0.32 0.23 0.17
Performance
Quarter 7.4% 8.8% 12.2% 11.3%
Calendar YTD 5.3% 10.4% 10.3% 3.9%
1 Year - Trailing 10.9% 13.8% 15.9% 10.2%
3 Years - Trailing 2.3% 1.6% -3.6% -7.2%
5 Years - Trailing 5.4% 4.5% 2.4% 0.6%
10 Years - Trailing 11.0% 6.2% 5.1% -0.4%
15 Years - Trailing 10.2% 8.2% 8.5% 6.5%
From Inceptiona 10.9% 8.7% 9.4% 7.6%

12
 PORTFOLIO CHARACTERISTICS AND PERFORMANCE
September 30, 2010
HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE
Calendar FPA Crescent 60% R2500/ Russell 2500 S&P 500
Year-End 40% BCGC
2009 28.4% 22.5% 34.4% 26.5%
2008 -20.6% -21.4% -36.8% -37.0%
2007 6.8% 3.9% 1.4% 5.5%
2006 12.4% 11.2% 16.2% 15.8%
2005 10.8% 6.0% 8.1% 4.9%
2004 10.2% 12.7% 18.3% 10.9%
2003 26.2% 28.1% 45.5% 28.7%
2002 3.7% -6.6% -17.8% -22.1%
2001 36.1% 4.8% 1.2% -11.9%
2000 3.6% 7.9% 4.3% -9.1%
1999 -6.3% 13.3% 24.2% 21.0%
1998 2.8% 4.9% 0.4% 28.6%
1997 22.0% 18.5% 24.4% 33.4%
1996 22.9% 12.6% 19.0% 23.0%
1995 26.0% 26.7% 31.7% 37.6%
1994 4.3% -2.0% -1.1% 1.3%
1993(a) 9.6% 8.2% 10.1% 5.3%
Objective, Strategy and Rankings
Objective
The Fund’s investment objective is to provide a total return consistent with reasonable investment risk through a combination of income and
capital appreciation. We employ a strategy of selectively investing across a company’s capital structure (i.e., a combination of equity and debt
securities) that we believe have the potential to increase in market value, in order to achieve rates of return with less risk than the broad U.S.
equity indices.
Strategy
To invest across a company’s capital structure to meet our objective. This includes investing in Common and Preferred Stocks, Convertible
Bonds, High-Yield Bonds, and Bank Debt. There is an occasional use of Government Bonds.
Downside Protection
FPA Crescent’s ratio of positive to negative monthly performance is, on average from inception,a 11% better than the equity indexes. FPA
Crescent has, on average from inception, captured 73% of the upside monthly performance but just 50% of the downside when compared to the
equity indexes.
Volatility
FPA Crescent has exhibited much less volatility as measured by its Standard Deviation from inception.a On average, the Fund’s Standard
Deviation is 37% lower than the equity indexes. FPA Crescent has a much lower delta in its average monthly performance, i.e., the difference
between the average positive and negative month when compared to the equity indexes. FPA Crescent has had only two years of negative
performance since inception,a the worst a loss of 21%. FPA Crescent’s maximum drawdown is 37% better than its benchmarks.
Crescent 60% R2500/40% BCGC R2500 S&P 500
Number loss years since inceptiona 2 3 3 4
Maximum Drawdownb -29% -33% -53% -51%
Performance
FPA Crescent has beaten the stock indexes for the inception-to-date time period.a
Conclusion
FPA Crescent has met its objective since inceptiona, having achieved higher absolute rates of return than the indexes and a dramatically higher
Sharpe Ratio.

NOTES
a Inception date is June 2, 1993. Returns from inception are annualized. The annualized performance of the Russell 2500 and Barclays Capital
Government/Credit Indexes begins 6/1/93.
b Maximum Drawdown is the largest percentage peak to trough decline in value that has occurred since inception.
Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. All returns assume the reinvestment of dividends and distributions. There are no
assurances that the Fund will meet its stated objectives. The Fund’s holdings and allocations are subject to change because it is actively
managed and should not be considered recommendations to buy individual securities. Distributed by FPA Fund Distributors, Inc., a subsidiary
of First Pacific Advisors, LLC.
Balanced Benchmark is a hypothetical combination of unmanaged indices comprised of 60% Russell 2500 Index and 40% Barclays Capital
Government/Credit Index, reflecting the Fund’s neutral mix of 60% stocks and 40% bonds. Russell 2500 Index is an unmanaged index
comprised of 2,500 stocks of U.S. companies with small market capitalizations. Barclays Capital Government/Credit Index is an unmanaged
index of investment grade bonds, including U.S. Government Treasury bonds, corporate bonds, and yankee bonds.
S&P 500 Index includes a representative sample of 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy. The index focuses on the
large-cap segment of the market, with over 80% coverage of U.S. equities, but is also considered a proxy for the total market.
13