Total AUM in Cyprus up 10% to €8.58 bln

Cyprus had EUR 8.58 bln in funds and assets under management (AUM) in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 10.3% from the third quarter and an increase of 3.8% from the last quarter of 2019, the finance services regulator said in its quarterly report.

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) said in its latest quarterly statistics bulletin it supervises 283 management companies and Undertakings of Collective Investments (UCIs), of which 197 have operations in Cyprus. CySEC supervises 164 externally managed UCIs, 56 internally managed UCIs and 63 external fund managers.

The total number of management companies includes 31 Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFMs), 81 subthreshold AIFMs, 3 UCITS management companies and four dual license entities (AIFMs and UCITS management companies).

AIFMs are EU-registered and regulated hedge funds, private equity funds and real estate investment funds.

A new regulatory category was introduced in Q4 2020 regarding the small alternative investment fund managers, or Small AIFMs, of which there are 17 that represent CIFs, that received their approval from CySEC for the provision of AIF management functions.

The UCIs, run by the management companies, had a net asset value (NAV) of EUR 6.99 bln. Approximately 52.5% of the AUM relates to assets managed by the AIFMs, while 22.1% are managed by Sub-threshold AIFMs, 20.7% by AIFMs and UCITS management companies, 3.9% by UCITS management companies and only 0.8% by regulated UCIs managed by foreign fund managers.

The CySEC bulletin said that UCITS have invested heavily in transferable securities (81%), followed by investments in bank deposits (10%).

AIFs, AIFLNPs and RAIFs mainly invest in private equity (43%), while 14.7% of the AUM are invested in real estate.

Some 165 UCIs account for 71% of the total AUM, 150 UCIs are domiciled in Cyprus (11 UCITS, 48 AIF, 70 AIFLNP and 21 RAIF).

From all the UCIs, 119 invest in Cyprus entirely or partially, and EUR 2.15 bln (25.1%) are investments made in Cyprus, 54% are in private equity, 14% in real estate.

When categorising unit-holders, the majority of UCITs are retail investors (99.3%), while for AIF, AIFNLP and RAIF, 40.2% of them are professional investors, 49.3% wellinformed investors and only 10.5% retail investors.

Regarding the specific sectors that UCIs invested in during Q4 2020, AUM in the energy sector totalled EUR 246.2 mln (2.86% of total AUMs), while EUR 29.9 mln was invested in fintech (0.35%), EUR 72.1 mln in shipping (0.84%), EUR 28.1 mln in the sustainability sector (0.32%) and EUR 1.5 mln in cryptocurrencies (0.017%).