Brexit day is less than two years away, and a European asset management trade group is laying out post-Brexit options for those U.S. asset managers who have been relying on London as a key gateway to the rest of the EU.

Marc-Andre Bechet ALFI director of legal and tax

This morning, Marc-Andre Bechet, for the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI), hosted a "New York Roadshow" in New York City. Roughly 200 executives from both sides of the pond gathered for the breakfast briefing, held at the Harmonie Club in midtown Manhattan and themed around Luxembourg offering "solutions for raising capital in Europe and beyond."

Hermann Beythan, partner at Linklaters, warns that if EU and UK negotiations don't go well and a "hard Brexit" happens on March 29, 2019, the EU passports of UK-based funds and fund firms will be lost. Yet, U.S. shops can keep both their London presence and their EU access, without worrying about being passported, Beythan says, if they shift the domiciling of the relevant funds (mutual-fund-like UCITs as well as AIFs) to other EU locales like Luxembourg or Ireland and then team up with a local EU manager (or create their own local arm), ideally in the same EU locale, explains Beythan.

The ALFI folks also pitched U.S. fundsters on using Luxembourg-based UCITs to gain distribution access to a host of non-EU countries, including Brazil and Australia (as of 2016). The next step, Bechte says, is "cracking mainland China." And a host of speakers discussed various options getting private equity and hedge funds distributed in the EU, via Luxembourg.

Jeanne Crauser, Luxembourg's general consul in New York, gave a brief introductory speech at the briefing. Other speakers included: Steve Bernat, CEO of Carne; Nicholas Bouveret, senior associate at Arendet & Medernach; Francisco Da Cunha, partner at Deloitte; Ewald Hamlescher, executive director of GAM Investment Management in Switzerland; Bill Jones, founding partner at ManagementPlus; Maarten Verjans, partner at PwC; Robert White, senior manager at EY; Jerome Wigny, partner at Elvinger Hoss Prussen; Nigel Williams, chairman of Royalton Partners S.A. Luxembourg; and more. Sponsoring service providers and law firms included Allen & Overy, Arendt, Deloitte, Elvinger Hoss, EY, GAM, KPMG, Loyens Loeff, PwC, and RBC Investor & Treasury Services.

ALFI's next Roadshow event will take place in October, during the week of the 16th.  

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