International funds top €963bn

THE net asset value of Irish domiciled international funds reached an all-time high of €963 billion at the end 2010.

That was almost a third up from €748bn funds located in the Irish market at the end of 2009.

The 29% increase in the value of Irish domiciled funds was confirmed by the latest figures from the Central Bank of Ireland.

It follows recent data from Bloomberg which showed that six of the top 10 European fund launches in the past month have taken place from Ireland with assets totalling $3bn (€2.2bn) at launch.

The latest statistics show Ireland continues to strategically position itself as a key centre for international funds, said the CEO of the Irish Funds Industry Association, Gary Palmer. This is because we have systems in place that continue to make Ireland an attractive centre for global funds, he said.

This shows Ireland offers services to a very high standard that continues to attract greater investment to these shores, he said.

He added that as the industry generally moved towards even greater openness, transparency and regulation, Ireland was in an excellent position to continue to meet the needs of this key sector of international finance.

The figures should not come as a surprise given that “the Irish regulatory regime includes many of the requirements which are being suggested as a European standard for the sector”.

At this stage all Irish-based funds are already required to have a trustee/depositary and are administered and valued by entities already authorised and supervised by the Central Bank of Ireland.

“The industry in Ireland has probably the broadest experience of dealing with the widest range of fund structures at all stages of their development, including structuring, administering and auditing... the industry in Ireland supports more than 40% of all global hedge fund assets which are administered in Ireland.”

These statistics come shortly after recently published figures from Hedge Fund Research (HFR) which showed that Ireland was also copper-fastening its position as the domicile of choice for hedge funds.

The latest annual report from HFR showed the proportion of the world’s hedge funds based here doubled to 7.4% by the end of the third quarter of 2010 from the end of 2009. This influx has “firmly” established Ireland “as the European domicile of choice and home to 63% of all European hedge funds,” he said.