Private Placements And AIFMD

AIFMD. Love it or loathe it – and let's face it, it's not the most popular law – the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) has changed the way that alternative funds are marketed to investors in Europe. Ultimately this will hopefully allow European and non-European alternative investment funds (AIFs) to be marketed to professional investors in Europe by way of a passport, similar to the way that UCITS funds can be passported round Europe. For now, though, the passport only works for European AIFs marketed by European managers, with non-European AIFs and managers waiting for the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)'s further recommendations on extending the passport to non-European jurisdictions. Your typical Cayman or BVI investment fund isn't capable of being passported yet and so needs to be marketed using the AIFMD private placement regimes in each country.