Life Partners Holdings (LPHI) is only followed by one analyst so this "pre-announcement" is versus a sole opinion. That said, more importantly than beating any analyst's guess are the growth metrics which seem to be completely sheltered from the economic storm; exactly the type of companies we want to hunker in as hedge funds act like cats who alternate treating early cycle versus late cycle stocks as their personal ball of yarn as their sector to "run up for the day".

This is a very thinly traded issue that frankly disobeys most technical rules, and can move 8% on 150K shares, so I've just bought this when it falls - even as it breaks technical support, and cut back on it when it rises. We've already had quite a few nice round trips.

$20M in cash; long term debt under a million - perfect.

Analyst (singular) is in at $25.2M in revenue and $0.55 EPS

• Life Partners Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ GM: LPHI), parent company of Life Partners, Inc., today announced another quarter of record earnings as it issued guidance for its third fiscal quarter and nine months ended November 30, 2008. For the quarter, Life Partners expects to report a 38% increase in net earnings which were $7.3 million or $0.61 per share compared with earnings of $5.2 million or $0.44 per share for the same period of last year.
• For the quarter ended November 30, 2008, Life Partners expects to report $28.1 million in revenues, a 46% increase over the $19.3 million it reported for the same period last year.

THIRD QUARTER
		Ended 11-30-2008		Ended 11-30-2007		% of Change
Revenues		$28.1 million		$19.3 million		46% increase
Income from Operations		$10.6 million		$ 7.5 million		41% increase
Pre-tax Income		$11.2 million		$ 8.0 million		40% increase
Net Income		$ 7.3 million		$ 5.2 million		40% increase
Earnings Per Share		$ 0.61		$ 0.44		39% increase

Life Partners Chief Executive Officer, Brian Pardo, said, “There is no question that investors are more wary now than they have been in a generation. That’s why the demand for our services continues to grow. Investors are looking for asset-based investments which are not correlated to the financial markets. Life Partners deals exclusively with assets that have an inherent value and do not rely on future market performance to realize gains. During this time of extreme market volatility, our clients’ investments in life settlements have remained completely unaffected and that is the kind of diversification that investors want in today’s market.”

Again, a hat tip to one of your readers for finding this name - I had never heard of it until he had mentioned it.

(Nov 6: Bookkeeping: Beginning Position in Life Partner Holdings)

Long Life Partner Holdings in fund and personal account