MAURITIUS Law and Practice Contributed by: Bhavna Ramsurun, Pinki Mahata, Lorna Senivassen and Shreya Mungur, BLC Robert & Associates
• maintain a minimum stated capital of at least MUR1 million (or an equivalent amount in a different currency) at all times; • have proper insurance cover in place; • establish and document its rules of internal control to ensure that it is legally compliant and sufficiently supervised; • have a code of ethics and a code of conduct in place that are binding on its officers, advis - Fund managers are typically set up as com - panies incorporated under the Companies Act 2001. 2.2.3 Restrictions on Investors An expert fund is only available to: • an investor making an initial investment on its own account of no less than USD100,000; • a sophisticated investor (as defined in 2.3.10 Investor Protection Rules ); or • any investor similarly defined in the securities legislation of another country. ers and employees; and • comply with AML laws. A professional CIS is not available to the public but can be offered to sophisticated investors, as defined in the Securities Act 2005, or on a private placement basis in the case of an open-ended fund where the minimum subscription amount is at least USD200,000. For a CEF, the subscription amount is generally more than USD200,000. To qualify as a professional CIS, the following restrictions apply: • shares acquired by the participants may not be resold to the public and the participants are advised of this restriction at the moment of subscription; and
• the fund may not be listed for trading on a securities exchange. A special purpose fund (which can be open- ended or closed-end) is only permitted to offer its shares by way of private placements to com - petent investors with significant experience and knowledge of fund investment. It can have a maximum of 50 investors and a minimum sub - scription of USD100,000 per investor. 2.3 Regulatory Environment 2.3.1 Regulatory Regime There are two main categories of funds: CISs and CEFs. As defined in the Securities Act 2005, a CIS is obliged to redeem a participant’s shares at their request, at a price corresponding to the net asset value (NAV) of those investments (minus fees and commissions). This obligation does not exist for CEFs, which are characterised princi - pally by the fact that the investors do not have control over when and how they exit the fund. A CIS or CEF is set up mainly to invest in portfolios of securities, money market instruments, or debt instruments (including loans, debt obligations or similar instruments) or other financial assets, real property or non-financial assets, subject to the approval of the FSC. A fund is required to be managed by an invest - ment manager licensed as a CIS manager by the FSC. A fund holding a GBL may appoint a for - eign investment manager subject to the approval of the FSC. A fund that is constituted as a com - pany may be self-managed (ie, managed by its board of directors), with the approval of the FSC. AIFs are classified as expert funds (which must be open-ended) or professional CISs (which can be either open-ended and closed-end) and are entitled to exemptions from the following detailed regulations that apply to retail funds:
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