French fund regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), wants to reshape the range of French products into three distinct fund categories.
Alongside stakeholders, the AMF was tasked with assessing any issues that the EU's Alternative Investment Fund Managers directive might raise and to prepare for its transposition into French law by next July.
As part of its 25 recommendations, the regular said French lawmakers should separate, from a regulatory perspective, funds for professional investors, funds for retail investors and funds with specialised investment strategies. Doing so would modernise and simplify the existing French product range, while preserving the specific features of certain product categories, particularly in terms of tax treatment.
The committee’s work was split into four tasks: to assess the competitiveness of the French fund industry; identify any new issues the directive could create in French law; discover ways to transpose rules on depositories; and seek a coherent approach to modifying the French fund regime with AIFM rules.
Other recommendations include allowing private equity managers to continue performing valuation functions in-house; and to harmonise minimum investor commitments to two distinct amounts: €0 for retail investors and €100,000 for professional investors. Currently France has a complex system with five different thresholds for various investor types ranging from €0 to €500,000.
Check out PE Manager's soon to be released US Compliance Guide for more information on how other EU countries are transposing the AIFM directive.
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