Criterion Investments Ltd. announced that unitholders of the Criterion Business Trust TA Fund approved the termination of the trust at a special meeting held today.

The trustee will now begin the process of winding-up the trust and distributing the net asset value in cash to unitholders. As part of the wind-up process, the trust will be de-listed from the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The assets remaining after the liabilities and obligations of the trust have been provided for will be distributed to unitholders of record on the third business day following the last day of trading. The payment will be made as soon as practicable following this date. The last day of trading will be March 7. Criterion says it will provide further updates on timing as the process unfolds.

The trust was originally created in order to provide unitholders with tax-advantaged cash distributions from a passively-managed portfolio of business income trusts. Proposed changes to the taxation of income trusts by the federal government contributed to a higher than normal level of redemption requests during the trust’s annual redemption period, which ended Nov. 16, 2006. Total redemptions for the period represented 46.83% of the trust’s net asset value. Accordingly, the trust’s manager determined that winding-up the Trust and returning the net asset value in cash to unitholders is in the best interest of investors.