The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

Legislation is being drafted for the creation of a “novel” fund vehicle that could be ‘married’ to the SMART Fund 7 model, the minister of financial services said yesterday.

Speaking with this newspaper at the 2013 Nassau Conference, Ryan Pinder said significant growth was being envisaged for the Bahamas’ investment funds industry.

“We’re taking a look at the funds legislation, but we want to come up with some creative products or vehicles that can work in conjunction with the Smart Fund product that we have for Latin America,” said Mr Pinder.

The Smart Fund 7 offering, in particular, is a product tailored to the needs of Brazilian high net worth clients.

“We have the traditional companies and foundations and partnerships, the traditional vehicles, but we think there is  opportunity to come up with some novel, out-of-the-box type vehicles that marry well with our fund product, especially for the Latin America market,” Mr Pinder said.

“We started drafting legislation on trying to create this new vehicle. We believe that it would be a very attractive vehicle to the Latin American client, marrying some elements of  civil law and common law which would be attractive to the jurisdiction there, and would work side by side with our Smart Fund product.”

Mr Pinder said there were also potential opportunities in other markets as well.

“I think there is a lot of opportunity out of Argentina. Certainly we look at Mexico, and there has been some discussion with some of the member firms about Colombia,” said Mr Pinder.