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Close to 50 per cent of investment managers and consultants surveyed at Northern Trust’s (Nasdaq: NTRS) annual Regulatory and Depositary conference cited client reporting as the greatest implementation challenge presented by MiFID II.
The survey of more than 100 attendees at the annual London event held in November focused on the regulatory demands faced by fund managers who noted further MiFID II challenges including: transaction and transparency reporting (approximately 20 per cent); inducements and research (approximately 20 per cent) and updating client documentation (approximately 15 per cent).
“The level of focus on client reporting was no surprise to us,”
Persistent trends across asset classes have continued to fuel CTA returns over recent weeks, writes Lyxor in the latest Weekly Brief from its Cross Asset Research team.
According to several benchmarks of performance, January is on track to see them delivering the highest monthly returns in a decade. Such exceptional performance results from the solid upward trend in equity indices, amid buoyant economic conditions globally and the soft pace of monetary retrenchment from central banks. Meanwhile, the current US earnings season is proving to be a good vintage so far, though less than 30 per cent of the companies listed
For most new fund managers the concept of having to prepare for a financial audit is entirely novel. Knowing what is involved and how best to prepare, in terms of applying best practices, is a new discipline, yet it is one that is crucial to running a successful fund management business.
With respect to the meteoric rise of cryptocurrency funds, there are only a handful of auditors that really know what they are doing, in terms of supporting them. For these managers, therefore, choosing the right auditor is important. If not, and they run into difficulties because the appointed auditor
By Richard Spencer, Partner, Campbells Legal – The stratospheric rise in the value of cryptocurrencies throughout 2017, coupled with significant price volatility, caught the attention of the world at large. Opinions remain polarised, with regulators warning “Main Street investors” of the risks associated with purchasing virtual currencies and cryptographic tokens. The underlying distributed ledger technology is far less controversial, with well-known global financial institutions investing heavily in this space.
Investment managers looking to launch crypto-focused investment funds aimed at professional investors often wish to set up a standalone, master-feeder or mini-master fund structure in the Caymans Islands. With many global
The Cayman Islands has recently taken a number of measures to reinforce its position in the global financial services market.
It has overhauled its anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing legislation, which includes explicitly bringing unregistered (ie not registered with CIMA) hedge funds and private equity funds, under its revised AML regulatory regime.
The complete legislation and regulations (which have been updated over the last 12 months) came into force in December 2017.
Specifically talking about the impact on investment funds, Matthew Taber, Partner, Harneys comments: “Previously there was a lacuna in the legislation and regulations, which meant that only those
By Marc Kish, Partner, Ogier – In a recent landmark decision of the Grand Court in A Company and A Funder, the Court has approved a third party litigation funding agreement and in doing so given a roadmap to funders as to what conditions it will apply in such cases. While previous decisions of the Grand Court have approved third party funding agreements in principle, the Court’s observations have until now been restricted to the use of funding for the benefit of impecunious liquidation estates. This was a case involving a large multinational seeking to take advantage of funding for
The Cayman Islands is fast becoming the go-to jurisdiction for software developers and fund managers alike as they look to establish cryptocurrency funds and ride what is, if one looks at the price of Bitcoin, a hugely volatile wave.
Funds such as EKT Active Fund, an actively traded cryptocurrency and ICO fund established by Australian hedge fund veteran Damien Hatfield in partnership with Steve Bellotti, former Head of Global Markets for ANZ Bank, have been keeping law firms busy as the demand for crypto-asset strategies builds serious momentum.
“There are various crypto-currency and digital asset strategies being implemented by the
By Lucy Frew, Partner, Walkers – Significant developments in the regimes for data protection and cybersecurity, together with increasing investor awareness, mean that these are key issues for hedge fund businesses in 2018.
Technological advances have brought great opportunities and efficiencies to the alternative investment fund industry but not without also introducing previously unimagined risks, irrespective of geographical location.
With the introduction of new domestic legislation in the form of the Data Protection Law, 2017 (DPL), new international regulation in the form of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and heightened regulatory scrutiny from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA),
Q&A with Jude Scott, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cayman Finance…
How would you assess the current health of Cayman’s funds industry?
Cayman continues to be a top jurisdiction for formation of Alternative Investment fund products, with the world’s top managers using Cayman Islands vehicles in their structures. All of us will be well aware of Cayman’s strength in hedge funds, with the Cayman Islands being home to over 10,000 registered hedge funds. Cayman’s fund offering also includes a significant number of Alternative Investment funds outside of the traditional hedge fund, including many thousand private equity, venture capital and real
