Custom House Global Fund Services has launched The Nascent Fund Sicav, an open-end Maltese domiciled Sicav umbrella fund platform for managers wishing to start their own new fund and establish a track record.
Custom House says the fund is an economical structure for start-up managers, with a relatively small amount of initial capital, wishing to establish and control their own fund vehicle, established as a segregated sub-fund of The Nascent Fund.
The Nascent Fund will specifically appeal to emerging managers with USD5m to USD10m of assets under management seeking a way to avoid many of the substantial initial and annual expenses of a standalone fund and wishing to establish a track record prior to marketing the fund to professional investors.
The fund has been structured so that each sub-fund will be entirely and legally segregated from each other sub-fund so as to avoid any cross-collateral risk. The portfolio of each sub-fund will operate through a separately incorporated trading company with each manager having full autonomy as the investment manager of its own sub-fund.
Nascent’s flexible structure will allow the manager to separate from the umbrella platform at any time to re-establish his sub-fund as a standalone independent entity transferring ownership of his trading company, and thus its track record, to the new fund. It is envisaged that most managers will do this with a two to three year period.
Dermot Butler, chairman of Custom House, says: “The launch of Nascent comes in response to the growing investor interest towards smaller and early stage managers which often outperform bigger, more established counterparts. The market lacks a credible and cost-effective solution to support bright emerging managers who are having difficulty, in the present market environment, in raising seed capital from anywhere except their family and friends and therefore find themselves unable to launch funds with sufficient critical mass to operate economically in their first few years. The Nascent Fund provides exactly the platform of support that these managers need whilst they establish themselves and build their track records and assets under management.”
