This week’s Equity Issues has been provided by Gabriel Kurland, a managing director of Montfort Funds
AG, which provides fund representation services in Switzerland. The following sets out a brief summary of
the revised Swiss Collective Investment Scheme Act (CISA) and the ending of the transitional period on 28
February 2015, as follows:
“With effect from 1 March 2013, Switzerland adopted a new law, CISA, to regulate its prosperous but
mostly unregulated financial industry. The major change has been the replacement of the private placement
regime with a regulated distribution framework, which governs the marketing of foreign collective
investment schemes in Switzerland. In practice, the new law extended the regulated activity to encompass
distribution to “qualified investors”. As a result, hedge funds, private equity funds and other alternative
investment funds have suddenly been brought into scope and obliged to comply with CISA in order to
continue raising assets from Swiss investors. The twoyear transitional period granted for compliance ended
on February 28th, 2015.
After having undergone the complexity of the AIFMD, private equity managers will find the steps to
comply with the new Swiss law to be quite straightforward. Indeed, for managers targeting only qualified
investors, no registration is needed, no reporting requirements are imposed and no costly reorganization is
required. With CISA, private equity managers are only a few steps away from being compliant. In order to
comply, managers need to appoint a local Swiss representative, a distributor and a paying agent for each of
their funds.
We consider that Switzerland will remain a top priority for alternative funds within their global distribution
strategy and that the potential of the market versus the overall compliance cost remains very attractive.”
If you would like to discuss the above or receive further information regarding CISA and Swiss
representative services, please contact Gabriel Kurland at [email protected] or Roman
Pelka at [email protected].
