ALFI Reiterates Its Position on AIFMD

The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) is currently under review, and alternative managers are still guessing as to what changes may eventually come down the line.

Last week, however, The Association of the Luxembourg Fund Managers (ALFI) again took the chance to reiterate its position on the proposed AIFMD changes inan article by Emmanuel Gutton, ALFI’s Director of Legal and Tax, in their annual report. Earlier this year, ALFI said that it was not ‘necessary to fix what isn’t broken,’ particularly since the AIFMD has succeeded in its twin goals of providing a single market for AIFS while strengthening investor protection and financial stability, a position that Gutton largely echoed in his article. ‘Over the last few months, ALFI has continued interacting and exchanging views with many stakeholders and policymakers, at national and international levels,’ he said. ‘A consensus was reached among ALFI members on the fact that the AIFMD has succeeded in creating a single market for AIFs and in strengthening investor protection and financial stability,’ he added. ‘The spirit of the AIFMD should be maintained and the AIFMD review should not trigger any change in this respect.’EMSA have raised the prospect of wider changes, including the harmonisation of AIFMD and UCITS, changes to the use of leverage, AIFMD reporting regime and use of data, and even the harmonisation of regulatory supervision of cross-border entities.

While a draft proposal on AIFMD is expected later this year, and the exact content is not yet known, Gutton said he’s confident that there won’t be wholesale changes coming. ‘Some declarations made by representatives of the European Commission… in recent public events are reassuring,’ he explained. ‘Nevertheless, ALFI will continue to make its members’ voices heard and to promote a targeted and technical review of the AIFMD based on actual past experience as initially contemplated by the AIFMD itself.’ He added that: ‘ALFI will reiterate its cornerstone conviction that… investor interest shall be the main (if the only one) criterion to assess the suitability of a proposed change to the AIFMD.’