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Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London:

Marc Russell-Jones, managing director of the Bank of New York Mellon in London, told Opalesque after the Edhec conference's panel on financial regulations (see above article) that the hedge fund industry itself is changing fundamentally because of political and legal pressure.

"I think sometimes people forget the political pressure," he said, mentioning the approaching U.S. mid-term and the U.K. elections - which will affect the macro environment of the industry.

The AIFM will have a massive impact on the distribution of products into Europe, in particular for U.S. managers (60% of BNY Mellon's clients are U.S.-based). A reaction we have seen in the Europe-based industry is the creation of UCITS version of hedge funds. But Russell-Jones believes that onshore structures such the Irish QIF and the Luxembourg SIF are better structures for hedge funds than UCITS, as they do not impose the restrictions that the UCITS structure does. UCITS are more-retail oriented products and thereby come with many restrictions on items such as leverage or types of instruments.

The Qualifying Investor Fund (QIF) is a regulated, specialist investment fund targeted at sophisticated and institutional investors, who must meet minimum subscription and financial resources requirements. The main advantage of the QIF is the removal of the regulator's general conditions relating to investment policies and borrowin......................

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