On 1 November, 2007, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) launched the Specialist Fund Market (SFM) -dedicated and tailored to the needs of investment funds, and targeted at an audience of institutional, professional and knowledgeable sophisticated investors. The SFM is designed for specialist ‘alternative’ funds, and offers managers of closed-ended investment vehicles a new opportunity to raise permanent capital in the investment markets centred in London.
The growth of more complex investment vehicles, together with the much publicised listing of certain high-profile private equity funds on Amsterdam’s NYSE Euronext exchange (including funds managed by KKR Private Equity Investors LLP and Apollo Management Corporation), and along with the rise of sophisticated fund structures being listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) -originally designed for smaller trading and entrepreneurial companies -led the LSE to identify a gap between the main market and London’s AIM.
