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Funds
Continued from p26
FATF grey-listings
The industry is reporting a common trend, a marked increase in enquiries for domiciliation of funds in Gibraltar and most importantly those funds making Gibraltar their home. Perhaps this is down to the increased media attention surrounding Gibraltar? The trend may have also been aided by the FATF grey- listings and other reputational issues that have plagued some of our non-EU competitor jurisdictions. Perhaps the herd mentality of funds drifting to some competitor jurisdictions has been broken. Gibraltar’s position in the market was recently recognised in a report published by PwC and Elwood Asset Management which ranked Gibraltar as the 3rd most popular jurisdiction for the domiciliation of crypto funds. This report may have also created even more interest in Gibraltar.
Gibraltar is also able to provide something that no other jurisdiction can: access to the UK financial services market.
This is particularly important in the retail funds space. Historically, Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferrable Securities (UCITS) managed by UK managers had been domiciled in a handful of EU jurisdictions and then have been promoted back into the UK to retail investors on the basis of the EU’s passporting regime. Due to Brexit, this is no longer possible and is set to be replaced with the UK’s Overseas Funds Regime. This is dependant on equivalence and it remains to be seen how it will work in practice. It is also unlikely that UK managers will be able to manage a UCITS domiciled
in the EU.
UK’s Overseas Fund Regime Gibraltar has had re-domiciliation legislation since 1996. The process has been tried and tested over the last 25 years and has been proven to be an effective tool in the re- domiciliation of companies and funds alike.
If those UCITS were to redomicile and make Gibraltar their home, on the basis of the single market created as between Gibraltar/UK.
UK managers could continue to manage their UCITS, they could continue to enjoy the unfettered access they have enjoyed to the UK without the worry of what the UK’s Overseas Fund Regime might look like and the UCITS would be regulated by the GFSC, a regulator which prides itself on its pragmatism and approachability.
It does seem like the stars have aligned for Gibraltar’s fund industry.
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28 Gibraltar International
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