The first Netherlands roundtable (Opalesque)
Amsterdam is unique in that its financial history dates back to early-17th century, when equity trading was invented. According the Holland Financial Centre, a public-private organization, the financial crisis has offered a chance for the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area to regain a lead that it had lost, especially by offering added value in the form of skills and expertise. One of which can be found in pension fund management services, others come in the shape of financial logistics and sustainable financing.
And of course, there is the nascent hedge fund industry, which now claims more than 30 single hedge funds, and for which the country created an accommodating vehicle, namely the FGR (fund for joint account). Dutch hedge funds, which manage approximately $20bn in mostly long/short equity (HFN) and managed futures strategies, are subject to the ordinary rules relating to investment institutions. And Dutch taxes are easy – also for expatriates.
The Roundtable, which gathered some of the industry’s most esteemed members of the local hedge fund industry, gives us a complete portrait of it, including the popular strategies, fund structures that are in demand, initiatives done for emerging managers by seeding platform IMQubator, investor-bases, the relationship between pension funds and hedge funds, and the regulatory environment.
For example, find out why:
The environment has become worse for Dutch pension funds to invest in hedge funds
The pension fund boards need to fully understand the strategies, regulators tend to classify hedge funds as riskier than equity, and pension funds have become short-term investors.
The Netherlands is a very favourable fund domicile and few know about it
Fore example, the 2007 Financial Markets Supervision Act provides the regulatory environment in which the investment manager, not the
fund, needs a license – which means hedge fund managers can launch several funds without needing to license them. The country also has a
friendly tax regime for investment funds.
The participants
• Wouter Ten Brinke, Theta Capital Management
• Ivo Jenniskens, Providence Capital
• Mark Baak, Finles Capital Management
• Willem de Vlugt, Evaluation Capital
• Jeroen Tielman, IMQubator
• Robert Vennegoor, Custom House Fund Services (sponsor)
• Dr. Randolph Roth, Eurex (sponsor)
also discuss:
• The demand for tailor-made products
• The challenges encountered by funds of hedge funds
• Hedge fund managers’ reaction to the current market uncertainties
• What is being done to preserve and to raise capital
• The Dutch fund structure known as the FGR
• Amsterdam’s place within the changing regulatory environment
• Who is affected by ongoing market regulation initiatives such as MiFID, MIFIR and EMIR
• The misconceptions about what a financial transaction tax could do
• Amsterdam as a happy place for foreign finance professionals
