Nine months after Luxembourg’s specialised investment fund (SIF) law came into effect, the Grand Duchy’s law firms are feeling the effect of growing interest in this new structure. Since 1 February, when the legislation came into force, there have been more than 350 funds established under the provisions of the new law. While some of those funds were institutional funds grandfathered into SIFs, there are many new funds being set up, as investors take to the new product created by the Luxembourg authorities. The new law provides for funds to be distributed to “informed investors”, primarily institutional investors and high net-worth individuals.
The SIF has meant a growing stream of work for Luxembourg’s law firms specialising in funds, with many reshaping their practices to take advantage of investor interest in Luxembourg as an alternative to offshore jurisdictions such as Cayman and the British Virgin Islands. “We recently had a call from an English law firm that usually uses Ireland but was considering a change to Luxembourg,” says Olivier Sciales, co-founding partner of Chevalier & Sciales.
