Ian Hamilton

This column is authored by Ian Hamilton, who is the founder of IDS Group. IDS provides fund administration services in Africa and Europe through Malta. He is also the founder of Scotstone Investments, a company that has fund structures and services for global emerging new managers.

The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is a play by Christopher Marlowe, based on the German story Faust, in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge and contains aspects that should be heeded by every country within the EU.

You may ask what this has to do with the investment community and particularly AIFMD. Will becoming AIFMD compliant bring riches and fame?

Yes, maybe in the short term, for a few big companies, but at the expense of others. In the end there is the danger of a wasteland.

The politicians of smaller countries make a Faustian pact with the EU on joining. There is instant access to lovely cash and loans and the promise of access to big markets. But the pact is handing the country's soul to the Brussels based bureaucrats, non- elected and not held to account for what they do. The money given is squandered by politicians on grandiose projects, new parliament buildings, enormous bridges and roads and is of little benefit for the general population except maybe to those in the construction industry that is cozy with the politicians.

Then the bite comes, all the rules and regulations designed to create bland uniformity in products and services oblivious to those wonderful differences that existed in products of a local nature.

Latvian farmers cannot meet the EU agricultu......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.