Jerome Lussan, CEO of Laven Partners participated in a UCITS III roundtable last month, organised by FT Business and the Professional Wealth Management. The purpose of the roundtable was to discuss the interpretation of the UCITS directive and the issues surrounding currently popular UCITS III products.
Participants at the roundtable included asset managers, banks and service providers.
During the discussions Jerome pointed out that although the UCITS III directive was implemented long time ago, it was not as popular with alternative strategies pre-2008. Today UCITS products are used as a means to restore investors’ trust following the fallouts from the financial crisis and Madoff. Jerome noted that most managers setting up new UCITS funds are doing so to win back investors – many of whom are now reluctant to invest in an offshore structure. Jerome stressed that despite the investor protection under UCITS regulations, it is important that investors are still aware of the relevant risks and conduct proper due diligence on the designated UCITS fund, an exercise which is not easy and involves a lot of resources including people who need to be appropriately skilled and qualified.
Jerome also noted that the draft Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive has been a cue for a lot of asset managers who have traditionally been offshore to consider what options they had onshore.
To read the entire transcript of the roundtable discussions, please click here.
