The concept

Outstanding potential in a growing marketplace

As politicians work towards making the Spanish hedge fund market a reality, investment fund managers are gearing up to structure their products. On the buy side, institutional investment managers are increasing the percentage of non traditional funds in their portfolios and high net worth individuals are actively searching for alternative investment opportunities.

By opening it's gates to hedge funds, Spain is clearly positioning itself as one of the few European countries at the forefront of the hedge funds industry.

"After Italy , Germany and more recently France, the Spaniards are working on defining a legal framework for hedge funds which will no doubt pave the way for further exciting developments in the Spanish asset management industry"

Who's investing?

The composition of the investor base providing the flow of new money into the hedge funds market in Southern Europe is changing: increasingly, hedge funds and hedge fund-like products are available to “mass affluent” investors and some are even available to retail investors, although access is typically via funds of hedge funds rather than directly into single manager hedge funds.

There is also increasing interest from European institutions as they seek to balance their fiduciary responsibilities to underlying investors or stakeholders against the investment drivers of diversity and alpha returns.

It is not only the investor base that is changing: strategies are evolving too and the past year has seen European hedge funds adopting certain of the less common strategies already seen on the other side of the Atlantic, such as providing loan origination, trading carbon credits and investing in reinsurance assets and in deals that were previously the domain of private equity houses.

Hedge Funds World España 2007 will build on the incredible success of the inaugural 2006 event and track the changes that the industry has under gone in it's first year.