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For a number of years, it has been practically impossible for funds to grant loans to third parties unless done on a one-off basis. Potential loan funds have, until now, not considered Malta.
The issue in this regard has always been a licensing one in that, in terms of the Financial Institutions Act, generally speaking the provision of a loan on a regular or habitual basis requires a financial institutions licence from the MFSA. This, coupled with the often strict interpretation of the MFSA as to what constitutes ‘lending’ and what constitutes ‘regular’ or ‘habitual’, has meant that funds have
- 08/10/2014
- 08/10/2014
For emerging managers, the fact that Malta retained its PIF regime alongside the new AIF fund regime means that a number of fund structuring opportunities now exist.
The most popular option, to date, has been for managers to register with the MFSA, obtain a fund management licence and launch a de minimis PIF. But according to Kevin Caruana (pictured), Managing Director of Custom House Global Fund Services (Malta) and David Barry, Head of Sales & Business Development, EMEA, there are other viable options to consider.
These include a de minimis self-managed PIF or the opportunity to join a pre-established
- 08/10/2014
- 08/10/2014
Retaining its Professional Investor Funds (PIF) regime is possibly the single biggest development for Malta in recent memory. The island is now home to over 600 MFSA-authorised hedge funds and whilst a number of those are now being transitioned into AIFs to comply with the AIFMD, the fact that small and emerging managers can choose whether to run de miminis funds outside the scope of the directive cannot be underestimated.
“Pre-AIFMD Malta’s PIF regime had already generated a lot of interest among managers. The MFSA performed mental acrobatics working out how it was going to retain the PIF regime alongside
- 08/10/2014
“What we are seeing under AIFMD is increased interest in asset managers using Malta as a domicile for the setting up of AIFMs,” observes Kenneth Farrugia (pictured), Chairman of FinanceMalta.
He continues: “Over the past ten years, the MFSA has authorised quite a number of Category 2 management companies. In fact, as at 30th June 3014, the MFSA had authorised 99 category 2 companies, and when one considers the advisory and custody service providers there are around 132 asset servicing operators in Malta. Beyond the 620 funds currently authorised by the MFSA, we have started to witness cluster formation on
- 08/10/2014
The hedge fund industry took in USD18.4 billion (0.8 per cent of assets) in August, the highest inflow in three months and a strong rebound from redemptions of USD750 million in July, according to data from TrimTabs and BarclayHedge.
“Hedge fund inflows this year are the strongest we’ve seen since the financial crisis,” says Sol Waksman, president and founder of BarclayHedge. “The industry took in USD99.0 billion in the first eight months of 2014, more than double the inflow of USD47.5 billion in the same period last year.”
Industry assets rose to a six-year high of USD2.38 trillion in
- 08/10/2014
- 08/10/2014
Maxim Group, an investment banking, securities and wealth management firm, has appointed Gregory Simons as a managing director and head of electronic trading.
Simons brings over two decades of institutional sales and trading experience in both high touch execution and the sales and implementation of electronic order management systems.
He spent a decade at the Instinet Corporation, ultimately becoming a senior vice president responsible for trading US equities as well as servicing US based hedge funds, mutual funds, RIAs, government agencies and insurance companies on the various electronic offerings.
Simons later joined Direct Access Partners as president, head
- 08/10/2014
Carmignac Group has appointed Obe Ejikeme as a quantitative equity analyst in the firm’s fund management team.
Ejikeme spent seven years as a research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was head of European equity and quantitative strategy.
Previously, he spent four years at FactSet Research Systems where he was a senior consultant covering sell-side quant research firms.
Ejikeme is based in London and works in the cross asset team headed by Frédéric Leroux.
- 07/10/2014
Twelve Capital has opened an office in London having received authorisation from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to operate as a MiFID investment firm.
Within four years of operation in Zurich and supported by strong performance generation, Twelve Capital grew from USD100 million to 3.5 billion AuM and from seven to over 30 staff.
In an effort to enhance its investment and business development activities, the firm decided to establish a presence in London, the key insurance trading and finance market.
The platform enables full integration in the London market.
- 07/10/2014
- 07/10/2014
The increased adoption of outcome-based benchmarking is pushing traditional asset managers to extend their investment capabilities by developing more alternative hedge-based strategies. At the same time, pure play private equity and hedge fund managers are moving into long-only products such as alternative mutual funds to capture a new investor base.
There is then, significant convergence taking place in the investment funds industry. Traditional asset allocators have long gone down the path of investing through fund-of-funds, even building their own alternative investment teams, but there is now another option being proposed: teaming up with seeders and acceleration capital specialists to build
- 07/10/2014
Craig Botham, Emerging Markets Economist at Schroders, comments on the first round of the elections in Brazil…
As expected, incumbent Dilma Rousseff won the largest share of the vote in the first round of elections, taking 41.6% of valid votes. However, unexpectedly, her opponent in the second round (to be held on 26th October) will not be Marina Silva but Aecio Neves, who obtained 33.5% of votes. Marina placed a distant third with only 21% of votes cast.
This surprising result – following polls showing a strong second place finish for Marina – is likely attributable to dismal televised debate showings
- 07/10/2014
- 07/10/2014
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