The financial statements released yesterday by the fund manager and trustee Perpetual Ltd for the six months to December 2007 show that the group was hit twice by fallout from the sub-prime crisis.Perpetual lost $18.3 million ($12.8 million after tax) as a result of a guaranteed return to investors in a structured product called the Exact Market Cash Fund.And the company's corporate trust division suffered a substantial fall in earnings as new trustee work related to asset securitisation dried up.Earnings before interest and tax for the corporate trust division fell from $17.2 million to $13.6 million. Some of that decline was due to the cost of integrating a couple of acquisitions - both mortgage servicing companies.The Exact Market Cash Fund was committed to providing investors with a return in line with the bank bill rate, whatever the performance of the underlying assets.On November 29 Perpetual announced that from July 1 it had suffered mark to market losses of $18.3 million. Exposure to sub-prime assets accounted for $5 million of the loss and that, according to the company, was not likely to be recovered. The balance, which was affected by widening spreads across asset markets, would be recovered as the underlying assets matured over the next year and a half.The company said it had no further exposure to sub-prime assets.Overall the result was disappointing for Perpetual. Its net profit for the six months was $87.6 million, down from $98.7 million for the December half in 2006. In calculating its operating earnings the company has excluded the Exact Market Cash Fund loss and has claimed a 28 per cent increase in operating profit after tax.Is this the first time an investment company has treated an investment loss as an abnormal item?