Finance ministry gives investment funds more time for licences

Hedge funds and some types of property investment will not fall under tougher supervision from Dutch regulators next year after all, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday.

According to the paper’s sources in The Hague, the new deadline for funds to be fully licenced is January 2013 and the change will be formally announced later this week.
Hedge funds and other investment funds had lobbied hard for a change in the original plans which were only made known at the beginning of November, the paper says.
Scandals
The financial services watchdog AFM wants to increase the supervision of investment funds – such as wine or teak or specific property developments – following several scandals in recent years.
To do this, the AFM says it will require funds to apply for a licence if the minimum investment is below €100,000.
The current limit is €50,000. This means funds are not subject to AFM supervision if they only admit investors who put in more than €50,000.
In the 2010 Palm Invest scandal, two men who swindled over 400 people out of millions of euros by promising to invest their cash in Dubai property were jailed for 3.5 years.