Jersey set to qualify for AIFM passport by 2013

Jersey-based managers will be able to offer investors a fund vehicle compliant with the incoming Alternative Investment Fund Managers directive, said Geoff Cook, chief executive of Jersey Finance, a state-backed industry group. 

To meet the directive’s requirements, Jersey extended its network of bilateral information exchange agreements to all 27 EU-member states—with the latest agreements going into effect at the latest 2013, said Cook . Many non-EU countries are in the process of updating or signing similar information exchange agreements, according to market sources.

Geoff Cook

AIFM compliant funds will be permitted access to an EU marketing passport (which allows funds to bypass the patchwork of national private placement regimes) sometime in 2015.

Jersey is now focusing its efforts on current level II measures taking place, which will flesh out the AIFM’s core mandates, said Cook. The Channel Island earlier this year named a new “international relations” minister charged with overseeing relations in London, Brussels and elsewhere.

Jersey domiciled funds unwilling or unable to meet the directive’s requirements can continue accessing EU investors through member-states’ private placement regimes until 2018. It will be at that time the new Paris-based European Securities and Markets Authority will make a judgment on whether the private placement route will go by the wayside. If so, funds domiciled offshore will have to comply with the directive in full—the upshot being provided the marketing passport.