When the European Commission announced back in March 2018, a proposal to amend the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), in order to provide for a uniform regime for “pre-marketing” of alternative investment funds (AIFs) across Europe, there were many commentators that declared that “AIFMD II had finally arrived”.
Last week, ESMA published a letter to the Commission setting out 19 key areas where it believes AIFMD could be improved. Specifically, ESMA’s letter includes: harmonising the AIFMD and UCITS regimes; delegation and substance; liquidity management tools; leverage; and the harmonisation of supervision of cross-border entities.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently proposed significant modifications to the mutual fund and exchange-traded fund disclosure framework. The proposed disclosure framework would feature concise and visually engaging shareholder reports that would highlight information that is particularly important for retail investors to assess and monitor their fund investments.
Last Friday (14th August) was the Q2 filing deadline for 13F reporting. But how many more filings will you have to make? Last month, the SEC announced proposed amendments to 13F Reporting, to update the reporting threshold for institutional investment managers, as well as a number of other ancillary changes. Below we detail some of these amendments.
On 2nd September 2019, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its final guidance regarding liquidity stress tests of investment fund…
Last week we took a brief look at the liquidity risk management regime in Hong Kong. This week, moving slightly southwest, and staying in the same continent, we review the liquidity risk requirements in Singapore. In 2018, the same year Hong Kong made amendments to its Fund Manager Code of Conduct, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued new Guidelines on Liquidity Risk Management Practices for Fund Management Companies (Guidelines).
Although liquidity risk management practices vary in different jurisdictions, in most cases, asset managers are required to monitor the liquidity of the fund on a frequent basis. Whilst many aspects of the regulations are broadly similar, differences can be seen from what is considered “liquid”, and around methodology to liquidity buckets, stress testing and reporting requirements. In Europe for example, neither UCITS nor AIFMD specify a specific methodology for calculating liquidity. This is in contrast to the US SEC Liquidity Risk Management Framework requirements which set out a specific methodology to be followed, although that methodology is not without its shortcomings.
This month marked one year since the collapse of Neil Woodford’s LF Woodford Equity Income fund. The Woodford fund was suspended in June, after it became overwhelmed by redemption requests from investors. One year on and investors are still awaiting their final pay-out. One year on and questions concerning the liquidity mismatches in open-ended funds still remain.
ESMA recently published a supervisory briefing on the supervision by National Competent Authorities (NCAs) of costs applicable to Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) and Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs). The briefing was response to the need to improve convergence across NCAs in the approach to undue costs.
As discussed in previous blogs, later this year new FCA rules for open-ended funds investing in inherently illiquid assets enters into force. The new rules concern non-UCITS retail schemes (NURS) that invest in inherently illiquid assets. Although the new rules are relevant to anyone with an interest in open-ended investment funds that are likely to hold illiquid assets, here we will be focusing on the enhanced oversight of depositaries.
