The future of funds in Guernsey

You can catch up now on last week’s webinar on the Future of Funds in Guernsey, co-hosted with our partners Mainspring Fund Services.

Key talking points covered in the webinar include:

• Resilience – Guernsey fund sector has shown great resilience over the last 12 months, once more reinforcing Guernsey’s safe harbour credentials.  Total net asset value of Guernsey funds increased in Sterling terms  over this period by £17.9 billon (7.8%).
• Substance –  Restrictions on travel to and from the island required Guernsey Law firms and fund service providers to develop proxy solutions for clients needing to hold meetings from Guernsey in order to comply with corporate governance and economic substance requirements.  They worked with the Guernsey Revenue Service to give comfort to industry on the application and interpretation of Guernsey’s substance regime
• •Private Equity and Alternative Assets – Guernsey has provided an alternative but complementary domicile for PE and alternative fund managers for the last 50 years.  Over this period Guernsey has experienced the life cycle of PE and alternative funds many times and is familiar with the unique challenges faced during each stage.
• Impact & Sustainable Investment – Guernsey is now well-placed to take advantage of the increased interest in Impact and Sustainable investment strategies following the introduction of the Guernsey Green Fund regime in 2018.  Guernsey is also a member of the United Nations’ Finance Centres for Sustainability Global Network and the Network for Greening the Financial System and the Sustainable Insurance Forum, and  has repeatedly shown it is committed to impact and sustainable finance
• Brexit – The exit of the UK from the EU has had no direct impact on the Guernsey funds sector as Guernsey was and continues to be treated as a “third country” (i.e. non-EU member) for the purpose of financial services.  As a consequence Guernsey will continue to rely on the National private placement regimes (NPPR) to access UK and European investors.
• Innovation – During the last 12 months Guernsey has continued to enhance it’s fund offering, an amendment to the existing Private Investor Fund (PIF) regulations will be implemented in the 2nd quarter 2021 where the requirement for a licensed manager will be removed in specific circumstances.  While in June 2020 Guernsey introduced The Limited Partnerships (Guernsey) (Migration) Regulations 2020 to further assist LPs that were originally established overseas to move to the Bailiwick quickly and easily.