By Sherri Ortiz – Competition between international financial centres is keener than ever, but the British Virgin Islands has many strong arguments to attract clients from all over the world. Alongside the strengthening and deepening of relationships with existing clients, our aim at the BVI International Financial Centre is to reach out in 2011, in partnership with members of the private sector, to new markets that could benefit from access to BVI services. In our efforts to develop and extend contacts across the world, it has been gratifying to observe increasing interest in the BVI, as exemplified by the jurisdiction’s

By Peter Todd – The British Virgin Islands has been a leading player in the international fund industry for years thanks to strengths that include a relatively light regulatory touch, but one that is robust enough to stand up to international scrutiny. The introduction last year of new rules under the Securities and Investment Business Act has delivered the degree of regulation and standard of reputation that global practitioners now insist upon. The competitiveness of the BVI as a domicile for sophisticated funds has been enhanced significantly in recent years by the growth in the jurisdiction of major offshore law

By Simon Gray – The outlook for the fund industry in the British Virgin Islands continues to brighten thanks to increasing investor confidence and reassurance that offshore funds are now unlikely to be shut out of European markets, as once seemed possible. However, BVI-based professionals believe that longer-term prospects might be improved by attracting a broader base of service providers to Tortola. Once the world’s largest domicile of offshore hedge funds, the BVI has trailed the Cayman Islands for around a decade, but today industry members are relaxed about the jurisdiction’s ability to thrive in the shadow of its Caribbean

By Derek Adler – Despite the downturn in the international fund industry stemming from the recent financial crisis, all the indications are that the British Virgin Islands have weathered the storm as well as if not better than its main competitor jurisdictions. In addition, the BVI has benefited from its diversified business model and a range of other successful financial activities including company incorporation and captive insurance. The BVI is the world’s second-ranking offshore fund domicile, but members of the industry do not see the islands’ goal as chasing rival jurisdictions or numerical targets. Instead it is to build on

By Ross Munro – Various recent cases have highlighted issues relating to the winding up of funds domiciled in the British Virgin Islands and the right or otherwise of investors to demand that control over the process be taken away from the directors and the funds’ managers and given to court-appointed liquidators. They also reflect apparent differences between the approach taken by courts in the BVI and those in the Cayman Islands. The case of Aris Multi-Strategy Lending Fund Ltd v Quantek Opportunity Fund, Ltd, decided by the Commercial Court of the British Virgin Islands in December 2010, was the

By Simon Gray – The outlook for the fund industry in the British Virgin Islands continues to brighten thanks to increasing investor confidence and reassurance that offshore funds are now unlikely to be shut out of European markets, as once seemed possible. However, BVI-based professionals believe that longer-term prospects might be improved by attracting a broader base of service providers to Tortola. Once the world’s largest domicile of offshore hedge funds, the BVI has trailed the Cayman Islands for around a decade, but today industry members are relaxed about the jurisdiction’s ability to thrive in the shadow of its Caribbean

Natixis’ EuroTitres department is the first client to use the new hedge fund services available on Euroclear Bank’s FundSettle platform.   An extension of its established portfolio of services for investment funds, FundSettle now provides automated cross-border order routing, settlement, asset servicing and reconciliation services for approximately 300 fund administrators active in hedge funds from all the major domiciles. Ivan Nicora, Director and Head of Investment Fund Product Management at Euroclear, says: “FundSettle is filling a gap in the processing of hedge fund transactions. Countless clients have been looking to transfer their entire fund portfolio to a single provider that

Independent global fund administration busines Apex Fund Services, has opened a Cayman Islands office. The opening of the Cayman Islands office is part of Apex’s strategy of giving fund managers access to all of the world’s financial centers and providing the full suite of Apex’s fund administration services via its network of global offices, including Apex’s ground breaking real time middle office service (MOOR) and range of fund platforms.   Apex has been granted a Companies Management Licence by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority and the Company now provides the following services: independent directors, local directors, Apex directors, corporate secretarial