In analysing Malta’s reputation and continued growth as a hedge fund domicile, the Opalesque 2015 Malta Roundtable has pointed to high rankings regularly received by Malta in benchmarking reports and the jurisdiction’s above average ranking with the World Economic Forum for almost every metric in financial market development and also cited the Oliver Wyman analysis of all European fund domicile jurisdictions, which indicates Malta as the one with the strongest growth.

The Roundtable highlighted Malta’s flexible regulation, transparency and good governance together with its reputation as a cost-effective domicile for funds, asset managers, fund administrators and custodians as some of its key advantages, underpinning its current status as the fastest growing EU fund jurisdiction

The Roundtable highlighted Malta’s flexible regulation, transparency and good governance together with its reputation as a cost-effective domicile for funds, asset managers, fund administrators and custodians as some of its key advantages, underpinning its current status as the fastest growing EU fund jurisdiction.

Also key to its growth as a fund jurisdiction is Malta’s regulator, specifically fund managers and fund promoters appreciate the approachability of the regulator and its strong drive to innovate within the parameters of the larger European framework.

The Roundtable report also highlights inter alia:

• Passporting rights afforded by virtue of EU membership, placing Malta on a level playing field with other EU countries, such that investment services and UCITS schemes may be registered in Malta and passported to any EU country;
• The creation of a new regime for Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) and de minimis fund managers;
• The various fund typologies which are exempt from the AIFM Directive (such as private Collective Investment Schemes);
• The introduction in 2012 of the Recognised Incorporated Cell Company (RICC) aimed at accommodating fund platform providers, whereby the RICC may effectively provide various start-up and administrative services to its Incorporated Cells (ICs) in exchange for a platform fee;
• Malta’s introduction in 2014 (as one of the first jurisdictions in Europe) of a Loan Funds regime catering for funds which originate loans to unlisted companies and SMEs, and also funds which buy loan portfolios.