FT Interactive Data has formed a strategic alliance with CCLux, a Luxembourg specialist in UCITS data, through which it will be the first vendor to provide international access to CCLux’s UCITS data and related documentation
UCITS – Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities – have been harmonised by EC legislation since 1985. The legislation allows the creation of funds that can be traded in several countries, subject to approval by local regulatory bodies, such as the U.K. Financial Services Authority, which are developing so-called ‘passport’ rules for the funds.
These rules will allow funds management companies to carry out cross-border trading throughout the European Economic Area – inside and outside the Eurozone. The new rules have been a factor in spurring some of the recent strength in European fund management, and are expected by analysts to be taken up across the region. While, like U.S. mutual funds, they are primarily aimed at the retail market, these cross-border funds are increasingly used by institutions to provide a simple means of creating internationally hedged funds.
According to Kelly Lavelle, European business manager, strategic relationships, at FT Interactive Data, the deal with CCLux is part of FT Interactive Data’s wider plans to serve the back-office market across Europe and internationally. “It’s very much part of the bigger picture in terms of us servicing the funds management industry in Europe,” she says. “Striking strategic partnerships such as this relationship with CCLux is an important part of developing our services.”
Lavelle says that the market for UCITS-based funds across Europe is reckoned at more than €3 trillion annually, one-quarter of which is traded across borders. Of that quarter, 75% is domiciled in Luxembourg – and most of the rest is in Dublin.
“Luxembourg has been very successful in attracting business,” she says. “It has long been at the forefront in the funds industry, and was one of the first to embrace the potential of UCITS with its favourable regulatory regime.” Around 50% of Luxembourg’s UCITS funds are distributed in France, Germany and Italy.
CCLux (Centrale de Communications Luxembourg) was launched in 1995 in association with the Luxembourg Investment Funds Association. Last year, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. Its role is to serve as a link between the fund administrators and the entities that redistribute and use UCITS data (net asset values, legal documentation) for administrative, reporting or commercial purposes.
CCLux collects the data from the issuing fund managers and is processed and structured in a variety of products and services to meet the specific requirements of a number of target groups. These include the financial press, agencies, data vendors, supervisory authorities and auditors.
FT Interactive Data will provide access to CCLux’s newly launched FundMarket Place Consultation Portal, which offers complete coverage of Luxembourg-domiciled UCITS. Through a portal link via FTS, users of FT Interactive Data’s European desktop portfolio administration tool will have access to multi-criteria search capabilities and more than 11,500 net asset values and their history, over 10,000 prospectuses and legal reports – downloadable in PDF format – generic and descriptive data for each fund, and dividend and other corporate action information.
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