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By: Kevin Ryan, HedgeDirector Ltd

The Cayman Islands financial regulator CIMA has revealed proposals to create a public database showing details of offshore directors’ workloads. This move follows a long campaign by investor pressure groups who have been lobbying CIMA to help them in their due diligence process.

The database is part of a comprehensive review of Cayman governance that will be welcomed by the hedge fund investment community. Other governance proposals include greater regulation of Cayman fund directors, clarification of directors’ responsibilities and a requirement for a minimum number of board meetings.

Investors have been particularly frustrated by a small number of directors who have repeatedly refused to disclose their portfolios of roles. In some cases, individuals are reputed to work simultaneously on hundreds of board positions. Stories of these so-called "jumbo directors" have made their way into the mainstream press, with Cayman directors becoming the subject of a Financial Times extended investigation in 2012, and CIMA is obviously keen to restore the island’s reputation.

CIMA stopped short of introducing a cap on the number of roles undertaken by any one director, with the explanation that a transparent public database will allow market forces to dictate what investors perceive as acceptable portfolios of roles.

Investors had been concerned that the proposed database would have limited use, being searchable only by fund name, b......................

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