Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
Here’s lookin’ at you KIID
The vexing question of how much to tell retail investors about what exactly they are buying has been exercising industry participants at the Reuters European Funds Summit. Although the sentiment is for more transparency and simplicity, as exemplified by the EU’s new two page marketing document, some managers feel this won’t fully reflect the risks and processes involved in a product.
The Key Investor Information Document (KIID), to be rolled out under UCITS IV, will replace the little loved ”simplified” prospectus as the primary document via which fund promoters communicate with prospective clients – something that makes some managers very uneasy.
Noel Fessey, managing director of Schroder Investment Management in Luxembourg, admitted he had a bee in his bonnet about KIID, which requires managers to be very concise in their descriptions. “Under UCITS IV the fund prospectus becomes the subordinate document but that’s the main document in which you can set out all the risks.”
He agreed that the KIID would allow investors to compare products – something the simplified prospectus had failed to do, but added, “There’s a significant degree of optimism by the regulator about what the KIID can do.”
UCITS IV Everyone
It is early days at the Reuters fund summit in Luxembourg, but already a few themes are building. For one thing, no one seems to be too negative about the investment climate.
For the most part, however, the attendees are focused on how the industry will recuperate from the battering it has suffered during the financial crisis. Again, there appears to be a degree of optimism. Most of the talk is about UCITS IV, which is fundspeak for a new kind of pan-European fund that is easier to distribute.
from Summit Notebook:
Tax evaders on the run
By Neil Chatterjee
The U.S. has promised it will hunt down tax evaders.
And it seems tax evaders are on the run.
DBS bank, based in the growing offshore financial centre of
Singapore, told Reuters it had been approached by U.S. citizens
asking for its private banking services. But when told they would
have to sign U.S. tax declaration forms, the potential clients
disappeared.
Swiss banks also approached DBS on the hope they could
offload troublesome U.S. clients to a location that so far has
not been reached by the strong arms of Washington or Brussels.
DBS said no thanks. In fact many private banks and boutique
advisors now seem to be avoiding U.S. clients.
Will this spread to other nationalities, as governments
invest in tax spies and tax havens invest in white paint?
Is this the end of offshore private private banking?
from Global Investing:
Reuters Funds Summit: Madoff, the silent presence
Master-fraudster Bernie Madoff is the invisible guest at an annual fund fest in Luxembourg, the European capital for fund administration.
Even though the former Nasdaq chairman is under arrest thousands of miles away from this discreet 
financial centre nestled between Belgium, France and Germany, his presence was omnipresent. Fund managers just can't stop mentioning him.
