The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) has announced plans which will UK and foreign property investment firms greater flexibility. In September, the FSA will introduce a single listing regime for investment firms as well as back rules allowing more flexibility in investment strategies. Last April, the FSA announced it planned to drop the current two-tier system for investment firms, opting for a unified regime for overseas and domestic funds. 'This is an important reform and part of ensuring the UK continues to be Europe's recognised centre of financial innovation', said Hector Sants, FSA wholesale and institutional managing director.
The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) has announced plans which will UK and foreign property investment firms greater flexibility. In September, the FSA will introduce a single listing regime for investment firms as well as back rules allowing more flexibility in investment strategies. Last April, the FSA announced it planned to drop the current two-tier system for investment firms, opting for a unified regime for overseas and domestic funds. 'This is an important reform and part of ensuring the UK continues to be Europe's recognised centre of financial innovation', said Hector Sants, FSA wholesale and institutional managing director.
The FSA said that the new regime was planned to be launched in the first quarter of 2008. It added that some changes would already be introduced from September this year. These include the possibility for firms to widen their investment strategies, in a move to spread investment risks, as well as the removal of additional listing rules for real estate investment trusts (REITs) and regulated open-ended funds. UK real estate investment trusts structured as closed-ended funds will be subject from September to the same requirements as other funds.
The Association of Investment Companies welcomed the deregulation saying it was 'sensible and proportionate'. 'The new regime strips away much of the red tape, which will allow new types of investment companies to list in London for the first time and provides standards of investor protection that are more robust than those in competing locations,' AIC's director general Daniel Godfrey said.
