Alternative UCITS For Offshore Fund Managers

Funds authorised as UCITS¹ currently hold in excess of 7 Trillion Euro and as international recognition of this form of fund regulatory authorisation grows the related opportunities are being examined by an increasingly broad spectrum of investment managers.

These opportunities include both a legal right to avail of pan European Union ("EU") market access, but also potentially expedited registration and facilitated distribution in third countries where the UCITS brand is readily identified and accepted. Recent statistics illustrate that in excess of 40% of all UCITS sales have come from such third countries, primarily those in the Far East.

For alternative managers UCITS became of greater interest following the broadening of the investment opportunities available to them and clarification in this regard further to the "UCITS III" regulatory reforms² and the Eligible Assets Directive³. Steady growth of alternative UCITS, typically called "Newcits", has been evident