Funds
Future facing legal experts guiding you through complex fund challenges
Latest
CMS offers expert advice at every stage of the funds lifecycle – from planning and launch through governance, restructuring and exit.
The international funds industry is changing at unprecedented speed. Concerns about the environment, sustainability and governance are changing the way many funds work and invest. Asset tokenisation, blockchain, fintech and artificial intelligence (AI) have huge disruptive potential, as do innovative alternative indirect investment vehicles and alternative asset classes. And, inevitably, the regulatory and tax environment for funds continues to evolve.
Whether you are launching, operating, lending to or investing in a fund or an alternative indirect investment vehicle, you need lawyers who have got your back, and who understand not only your business and your requirements, but also the funds landscape and its markets.
Future facing funds
CMS funds lawyers are embedded in their local markets and have extensive industry connections. We are also well known for our specialist expertise in international fund structuring and cross-border mandates. From our global team of over 130 professionals, we can mobilise the right people quickly to create the best team for every mandate.
Our experts are based in jurisdictions including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK, Ukraine, as well as Luxembourg, the capital of Europe’s investment funds industry. Our lawyers also provide US regulatory support.
Every stage of the funds cycle demands a tailored strategy and structure. CMS offers expert advice at every stage of the funds lifecycle – from planning and launch through governance, restructuring and exit. Different types of funds and asset classes also require distinct advice. We advise on all types of funds (both regulated and unregulated) and indirect structures, across the asset classes from private equity, real estate, infrastructure, hedge, venture capital, debt and exchange traded funds.
Our core funds team can leverage expert resources across CMS to ensure you have the expert advice you need, whatever your requirements, in areas from finance through regulation and taxation to technology. Our sector focus means we can offer you seamless support from market leading specialists in, for example, energy and clean energy, life sciences & healthcare, hotels & leisure, real estate, and financial institutions. And if you are involved in a dispute or potential dispute, or simply wish to mitigate your dispute risk, we have a world class team of dispute resolution lawyers who will help you achieve the most commercial outcome possible.
We are deeply immersed in the funds industry and play a leading role in conversations shaping the tax and regulatory developments that affect your business, as well as complex technical developments such as the role of tokenisation and AI in the future of fund management.
CMS partners are member of numerous industry organisations’ committees/working groups, enabling CMS to be at the forefront of policy discussions. These include ALFI and LPEA (Luxembourg), IPF, AREF, INREV, BCO, BPF, LPeC, BVCA, EPRA, FMLC, TISA, IE, Invest Europe, BVK (Germany) ALFI and Itinerari Previdenziali (Italy).
Welcome to the CMS Funds Group
Legal experts for Funds
Highlighted experience
Case studies
CMS Luxembourg advised Blochome, a real estate company, on the tokenisation of the ownership of a residential property, by the issuance of its shares represented by tokens that are transferable through blockchain.
The structure comprises a Luxembourg securitisation vehicle which indirectly owns a building currently under construction in the city of Luxembourg. The tokens enable their holder to own, indirectly, a share of the building. The tokens may be bought by professional and retail investors with the aim of covering the EUR 8m cost of financing of the building.
CMS Luxembourg worked with all parts of the value chain, including the tokeniser, the corporate service providers, the marketing firms, as well as the Luxembourg regulator (the CSSF).
CMS UK is advising Aviva Investors on the establishment and the launch of a GBP 425m flagship climate transition fund.
The structure comprises a unique UK regulated fund investing into climate transition focused real estate, infrastructure and forestry assets in the UK and Europe, through a range of specialist Luxembourg funds. The new funds are the flagship component of Aviva Investors’ climate transition ambitions, with an aim for the UK fund to be net zero by 2040.
The cross-border nature has brought a range of complexities requiring specialist technical expertise. Climate change issues were also of paramount importance. The combination of CMS’s international practice and expertise in the ESG space enabled a successful conclusion.
In 2021, CMS Singapore co-authored a MAS-sponsored and trail-blazing white paper exploring the blockchain native tokenisation of a Singapore variable capital (VCC) fund.
The product of 12 months of work between subject matter experts at CMS Singapore, State Street, UBS, PwC, Tezos, STACS and digital asset platform InvestaX, the study represents the most detailed analysis and most extensive recommendations relating to the required legal, technical and regulatory infrastructure ever published for the Singapore market.
Asia Pacific is seen as a key market through which institutional fund and asset managers can target the next generation of investors through fund tokenisations and other digital asset initiatives.
CMS Singapore has been at the cutting edge of these projects in Singapore – both in the tokenisation of funds and recommendations to Government for structural changes to facilitate ‘blockchain native’ fund tokenisations in Singapore.
Funds Insights
Local market knowledge. Global outlook
We provide future-facing legal advice to help your organisation thrive. Combining local market knowledge and a global perspective, and with lawyers in locations worldwide, your organisation benefits from the expertise it needs, even across borders.
About CMS