Ucits III-compliant hedge funds have continued to thrive throughout the second quarter of 2010, as the sector edges towards 500 funds, according to data provider, the Ucits Alternative Index.

With a true universe of these so called ‘Newcits’ funds now in place, the Ucits compliant funds of hedge funds (FoHFs) picture is also evolving rapidly, as FoHFs businesses look to build diversified portfolios of Ucit managers.

The data shows a sharp increase of both single manager and FoHFs, 19% and 40% respectively, with AuM in the second quarter rising by E13 billion ($17bn) for single manager funds and E 0.8 billion ($1bn) for funds of hedge funds. An upswing of 19% and 50% in percentage terms.

At the end of Q1 2010 Luxemburg and Ireland were the domiciles of respectively 33% and 27% of all Ucits funds of hedge funds. Given that almost all new funds of hedge funds launched in Q2 are domiciled in Luxemburg, the Grand Duchy now represents 50% of this market.

UCITS hedge funds have taken in about $100 billion, as hedge funds—primarily in Europe—scrambled to launch vehicles that will be exempt from the European Union’s proposed alternative investments regulations.

Directive 2001/107/EC

Article 5f

1. Each home Member State shall draw up prudential rules which management companies, with regard to the activity of management of UCITS authorised according to this Directive, shall observe at all times.

In particular, the competent authorities of the home Member State having regard also to the nature of the UCITS managed by a management company, shall require that each such company:

(a) has sound administrative and accounting procedures, control and safeguard arrangements for electronic data processing and adequate internal control mechanisms including, in particular, rules for personal transactions by its employees or for the holding or management of investments in financial instruments in order to invest own funds and ensuring, inter alia, that each transaction involving the fund may be reconstructed according to its origin, the parties to it, its nature, and the time and place at which it was effected and that the assets of the unit trusts/common funds or of the investment companies managed by the management company are invested according to the fund rules or the instruments of incorporation and the legal provisions in force;

(b) is structured and organised in such a way as to minimise the risk of UCITS’ or clients’ interests being prejudiced by conflicts of interest between the company and its clients, between one of its clients and another, between one of its clients and a UCITS or between two UCITS.

Nevertheless, where a branch is set up, the organisational arrangements may not conflict with the rules of conduct laid down by the host Member State to cover conflicts of interest.

2. Each management company the authorisation of which also covers the discretionary portfolio management service mentioned in Article 5(3)(a):

- shall not be permitted to invest all or a part of the investor’s portfolio in units of unit trusts/common funds or of investment companies it manages, unless it receives prior general approval from the client

Article 5g

1. If Member States permit management companies to delegate to third parties for the purpose of a more efficient conduct of the companies’ business to carry out on their behalf one or more of their own functions the following preconditions have to be complied with:

(a) the competent authority must be informed in an appropriate manner;

(b) the mandate shall not prevent the effectiveness of supervision over the management company, and in particular it must not prevent the management company from acting, or the UCITS from being managed, in the best interests of its investors;

(c) when the delegation concerns the investment management, the mandate may only be given to undertakings which are authorised or registered for the purpose of asset management and subject to prudential supervision; the delegation must be in accordance with investment-allocation criteria periodically laid down by the management companies;

(d) where the mandate concerns the investment management and is given to a third-country undertaking, cooperation between the supervisory authorities concerned must be ensured;

(e) a mandate with regard to the core function of investment management shall not be given to the depositary or to any other undertaking whose interests may conflict with those of the management company or the unit-holders;

(f) measures shall exist which enable the persons who conduct the business of the management company to monitor effectively at any time the activity of the undertaking to which the mandate is given;

(g) the mandate shall not prevent the persons who conduct the business of the management company to give at any time further instructions to the undertaking to which functions are delegated and to withdraw the mandate with immediate effect when this is in the interest of investors;

(h) having regard to the nature of the functions to be delegated, the undertaking to which functions will be delegated must be qualified and capable of undertaking the functions in question, and

(i) the UCITS’ prospectuses list the functions which the management company has been permitted to delegate.

2. In no case shall the management company’s and the depositary’s liability be affected by the fact that the management company delegated any functions to third parties, nor shall the management company delegate its functions to the extent that it becomes a letter box entity.

Title D – The right of establishment and the freedom to provide services

Article 6

1. Member States shall ensure that a management company, authorised in accordance with this Directive by the competent authorities of another Member State, may carry on within their territories the activity for which it has been authorised, either by the establishment of a branch or under the freedom to provide services.

2. Member States may not make the establishment of a branch or the provision of the services subject to any authorisation requirement, to any requirement to provide endowment capital or to any other measure having equivalent effect.

Article 6a

1. In addition to meeting the conditions imposed in Articles 5 and 5a, any management company wishing to establish a branch within the territory of another Member State shall notify the competent authorities of its home Member State.

2. Member States shall require every management company wishing to establish a branch within the territory of another Member State to provide the following information and documents, when effecting the notification provided for in paragraph 1:

(a) the Member State within the territory of which the management company plans to establish a branch;

(b) a programme of operations setting out the activities and services according to Article 5(2) and (3) envisaged and the organisational structure of the branch;

(c) the address in the host Member State from which documents may be obtained;

(d) the names of those responsible for the management of the branch.

Article 6b

1. Any management company wishing to carry on business within the territory of another Member State for the first time under the freedom to provide services shall communicate the following information to the competent authorities of its home Member State:

(a) the Member State within the territory of which the management company intends to operate;

(b) a programme of operations stating the activities and services referred to in Article 5(2) and (3) envisaged.

2. The competent authorities of the home Member State shall, within one month of receiving the information referred to in paragraph 1, forward it to the competent authorities of the host Member State.

They shall also communicate details of any applicable compensation scheme intended to protect investors.

Directive 2001/108/EC

Article 21

1. The management or investment company must employ a risk-management process which enables it to monitor and measure at any time the risk of the positions and their contribution to the overall risk profile of the portfolio; it must employ a process for accurate and independent assessment of the value of OTC derivative instruments.

It must communicate to the competent authorities regularly and in accordance with the detailed rules they shall define, the types of derivative instruments, the underlying risks, the quantitative limits and the methods which are chosen in order to estimate the risks associated with transactions in derivative instruments regarding each managed UCITS.

2. The Member States may authorise UCITS to employ techniques and instruments relating to transferable securities and money market instruments under the conditions and within the limits which they lay down provided that such techniques and instruments are used for the purpose of efficient portfolio management.

When these operations concern the use of derivative instruments, these conditions and limits shall conform to the provisions laid down in this Directive.

Under no circumstances shall these operations cause the UCITS to diverge from its investment objectives as laid down in the UCITS’ fund rules, instruments of incorporation or prospectus.

3. A UCITS shall ensure that its global exposure relating to derivative instruments does not exceed the total net value of its portfolio.

The exposure is calculated taking into account the current value of the underlying assets, the counterparty risk, future market movements and the time available to liquidate the positions. This shall also apply to the following subparagraphs.

A UCITS may invest, as a part of its investment policy and within the limit laid down in Article 22(5), in financial derivative instruments provided that the exposure to the underlying assets does not exceed in aggregate the investment limits laid down in Article 22.

The Member States may allow that, when a UCITS invests in index-based financial derivative instruments, these investments do not have to be combined to the limits laid down in Article 22.

When a transferable security or money market instrument embeds a derivative, the latter must be taken into account when complying with the requirements of this Article.

Article 22

1. A UCITS may invest no more than 5 % of its assets in transferable securities or money market instruments issued by the same body.

A UCITS may not invest more than 20 % of its assets in deposits made with the same body.

The risk exposure to a counterparty of the UCITS in an OTC derivative transaction may not exceed:

- 10 % of its assets when the counterpart is a credit institution referred to in Article 19(1)(f), or

- 5 % of its assets, in other cases.

2. Member States may raise the 5 % limit laid down in the first sentence of paragraph 1 to a maximum of 10 %. However, the total value of the transferable securities and the money market instruments held by the UCITS in the issuing bodies in each of which it invests more than 5 % of its assets must not then exceed 40 % of the value of its assets.

This limitation does not apply to deposits and OTC derivative transactions made with financial institutions subject to prudential supervision.

Notwithstanding the individual limits laid down in paragraph 1, a UCITS may not combine:

- investments in transferable securities or money market instruments issued by,

- deposits made with, and/or

- exposures arising from OTC derivative transactions undertaken with

a single body in excess of 20 % of its assets.

3. The Member States may raise the 5 % limit laid down in the first sentence of paragraph 1 to a maximum of 35 % if the transferable securities or money market instruments are issued or guaranteed by a Member State, by its local authorities, by a non-member State or by public international bodies to which one or more Member States belong.

4. Member States may raise the 5 % limit laid down in the first sentence of paragraph 1 to a maximum of 25 % in the case of certain bonds when these are issued by a credit institution which has its registered office in a Member State and is subject by law to special public supervision designed to protect bond-holders.

In particular, sums deriving from the issue of these bonds must be invested in conformity with the law in assets which, during the whole period of validity of the bonds, are capable of covering claims attaching to the bonds and which, in the event of failure of the issuer, would be used on a priority basis for the reimbursement of the principal and payment of the accrued interest.

When a UCITS invests more than 5 % of its assets in the bonds referred to in the first subparagraph and issued by one issuer, the total value of these investments may not exceed 80 % of the value of the assets of the UCITS.

*These are EU laws and may not apply in the US.  Please consult professional legal advice before using ANY of this information.

Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities’ (or UCITS, pronounced yoo-sits) are a set of European Union directives that aim to allow collective investment schemes to operate freely throughout the EU on the basis of a single authorisation from one member state. In practice many EU member nations have imposed additional regulatory requirements that have impeded free operation with the effect of protecting local asset managers.

The objective of the original UCITS directive, adopted in 1985, was to allow for open-ended funds investing in transferable securities to be subject to the same regulation in every Member State. It was hoped that once such legislative uniformity was established throughout Europe, funds authorised in one Member State could be sold to the public in each Member State without further authorisation, thereby furthering the EU’s[1] goal of a single market for financial services in Europe.

The reality differed somewhat from the expectation due primarily to individual marketing rules in each Member State that created obstacles to cross-border marketing of UCITS. In addition, the limited definition of permitted investments for UCITS weakened the marketing possibilities of a UCITS. Accordingly, in the early 1990s proposals were developed to amend the 1985 Directive and more successfully harmonise laws throughout Europe. These discussions, although leading to a draft UCITS II directive, were subsequently abandoned as being too ambitious when the Council of Ministers could not reach a common position.

In July 1998 the EU Commission published a new proposal which was drafted in two parts (a product proposal and a service provider proposal), which sought to amend the 1985 Directive. These proposals were finally adopted in December 2001 (UCITS III). UCITS III consists of the following two directives:

Directive 2001/107/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (the “Management Directive”); and
Directive 2001/108/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (the “Product Directive”).
The Management Directive seeks to give management companies a “European passport” to operate throughout the EU, and widens the activities which they are allowed to undertake. It also introduces the concept of a simplified prospectus, which is intended to provide more accessible and comprehensive information in a simplified format to assist the cross-border marketing of UCITS throughout Europe.

The primary aim of the Product Directive is to remove barriers to the cross-border marketing of units of collective investment funds by allowing funds to invest in a wider range of financial instruments. Under this directive, it is possible to establish money funds, derivatives funds, index-tracking funds, and funds of funds as UCITS.

A collective investment fund may apply for UCITS status in order to allow EU-wide marketing. The concept is to create a single market in transferable securities across the EU. With a larger market the economies of scale will reduce costs for investment managers which can be passed on to consumers.

Throughout Europe approximately €6.8trillion are invested in collective investments. Of these funds about 76% are UCITS. (Source: EFAMA – Q3 2008)

The UCITS IV directive (Source: [1])has been approved by the European Parliament on 13 January 2009, to be implemented in 2011. The changes from UCITS III are:

Notification Procedure
Key Investor Information (KII)
Adapted Framework for Mergers
Master-feeder Structures
Cooperation between Member State Supervisory Authorities
Management Company Passport

Ref.: Wikipedia