Independent directors and non executive directors have come into the
spotlight in recent years following the well reported failings of firms
such as Weavering Capital. In earlier examples, Beacon Hill Asset
Management and Bear Stearns High Grade Structured Credit’s offshore fund
directors were singled out for criticism for failing in their duties.
All investment management firms need to pay very careful attention to
a recent paper issued by the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA)
concerning the management of conflicts of interest between asset
management firms and their customers.
In the current competitive hedge fund marketplace the use of side
letters between investors and funds has become commonplace. Side letters
are used by funds and fund managers to draw in investors who jockey for
the most favourable terms possible.
The world has become global and this not only on business and private
sides, but also family offices are seeking increasingly to get the most
out of this international playing field at their hand.
In a market traditionally focused on funds and banks, the Cayman
Islands Stock Exchange (CSX) has recently expanded its services to
support new issues and start-ups. The principal reason for seeking a
listing is to raise new funds for establishing or growing a business.
There is growing demand from investors domiciled in the Gulf Co-operative Council (GCC) region for investment portfolios that include Shariah compliant instruments. Although many sovereign wealth funds may invest in other noncompliant products, a growing part of their diverse portfolios is Shariah compliant.
For
the first time the International Accounting Standards Board has
proposed industry specific guidance for investment entities.
Islamic finance is the fastest growing sector in the financial
services industry, having grown by over 20 per cent annually in recent
years, and estimates of current global Islamic banking assets under
management range up to $1 trillion.
The investor due diligence process has evolved with the growth of the hedge fund industry. What was once a short and rather perfunctory process has grown into one which today is highly quantitative and detailed.
Politicians make much of sharing values with their constituents, though
they struggle at times to elucidate precisely what those values are and
what it is that is of value to both sides of the equation.
European regulators will decide early this year whether UCITS funds
should be reclassified as “complex” and “non-complex” products in order
to improve transparency of information about investment strategies.
In the current investment climate, is any institutional investor going to invest in your fund if your service providers deliver an unregulated service?
The enforcement division of the SEC’s Asset Management Unit has
recently brought a number of complaints against various hedge funds and
their investment managers.
I recently participated in an investment panel as part of the 2011 Cayman Captive Forum. The intent was to give the owners of captive insurance companies an insight into the factors they ought to be considering in establishing and monitoring an investment programme for their company.
While family office structures seemed to be restricted for a long
time to the classic single family office and only a handful of families
in the US and in a number of European countries, today’s family office
market is not only experiencing a “boom” in newly-established
structures, but is also more diverse than ever before.
The recent decision of the Financial Services Division of the Grand
Court of the Cayman Islands in the matter of the Weavering Macro Fixed
Income Fund Limited was met with a wall of noise from the industry in
the Cayman Islands. Although that of itself was no surprise, the
particular tone of that noise was surprising to me at least.
This article discusses the importance of business process automation within an asset management firm at all stages of development and how these organisations can measure their current processes versus investor expectations.
During the course of the fund industry’s slow yet sure recovery from the fallout of the global credit crisis, it has become increasingly apparent that prudently structured investment funds of all types should strongly consider including provisions in their constitutional documentation contemplating a “soft wind down”.
Over the years, in fact for the whole period leading up to Cayman
achieving its position as a leading offshore jurisdiction for
institutional clients, one of our strongest selling points was that our
private and public sectors worked together to draft bespoke legislation
to meet the ever-changing needs of the financial market.
Based on a “slam dunk” set of facts, the Cayman Islands Grand Court recently delivered a very strong message to directors of Cayman Islands companies – at your peril do you deliberately ignore your fundamental legal obligations.
On 11 November 2010, after nearly two years
of lobbying and debate, the European Parliament adopted the final text of the
Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive.
The
invitation in December 2010 by China to South Africa to join the BRIC group of
major emerging economies, to create the ‘BRICS’ acronym, has heralded a new
dawn, not only for the nation of South Africa, but arguably for the continent
of Africa as a whole.
Investors expend substantial time and resources on due diligence.
However, much of their efforts are front loaded, focused on quantitative
measures with a bias towards initial due diligence, ie spotting the “bad
apples” before they are included in a portfolio