FundRock Management Company SA (FundRock) expands its service offering to enable asset managers to benefit from the latest addition to Luxembourg’s fund vehicle toolbox, namely the Reserved Alternative Investment Fund (RAIF).
On July 14th 2016, the Bill of Law No.6929 regarding the Reserved Alternative Investment Fund was adopted by the Luxembourg Parliament. The RAIF vehicle is widely expected to become a game changer for the on-shore European Alternative Investment landscape.
The main differences between the RAIF and other Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) vehicles is that the RAIF specifically targets well-informed investors and is an unsupervised vehicle. The RAIF is not supervised by the CSSF, yet is indirectly regulated under the Alternative Investment Fund Manager (AIFM), a regulated entity, and will be supervised indirectly by the AIFM.
The RAIF offers a number of advantages for asset managers, including:
- lower cost access to well-informed investors across the EU;
- increased speed to market;
- flexibility, in terms of asset classes and investment policies within a regulated structure;
- solution for investor access to regulated, yet flexible vehicle.
Greg Robinson-Kok, executive director – alternatives at FundRock, said: “As a fully authorised AIFM, FundRock has a solid track record of managing AIF vehicles – since 2007. With our solid fund management infrastructure and our robust risk and compliance approach, we are well placed to enable asset managers to take advantage of the new RAIF vehicle. Fundamental to the RAIF concept is the AIFM and its ability to assume responsibility for an expanded supervisory and oversight role.”
The alternative investment fund market has steadily increased since the approval of the Alternative Fund Management Directive (AIFMD) in July 2013, an EU law introduced to regulate alternative investment funds. In 2015 alone, net assets invested in alternative investment funds increased by 8.3% to EUR 4.412 billion (source: efama, February 2016).