Portugal: Collective capital investment schemes

SUPPLEMENT - INVESTMENT FUNDS - June 01, 2009

Collective investments schemes, notably mutual funds and real-estate investment funds, have been an important tool in the Portuguese financial system for the last 20 years.

Decree-Law 252/2003 of October 17 2003 (as amended UCI Law) sets out the general legal framework on undertakings for collective investment (UCI). A UCI may be defined as an undertaking with the purpose of collectively investing capital obtained from investors, which is managed under a principle of risk sharing and exclusively aiming at the investors' best interests.

The UCI Law determines that UCI may adopt the legal structure of either an investment fund (contractual structure) or an investment company (corporate structure). An investment fund corresponds to an autonomous pool of assets, owned by the unitholders but managed by the respective fund manager. An investment company is owned by its shareholders and manages itself, even though it may have an investment advisor or outsource its...



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