Guernsey Funds Forum 2026 Panel 1: Flexible fund structuring

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Panel 1: Flexible fund structuring 

Daisy McAndrew 

This session is really looking at the most flexible fund structuring that is possible. We've already heard about this incredible figure, this one-trillion-pound figure that Guernsey is rightfully so proud of, collectively overseeing more than a trillion pounds on the island's investment sector. We want to dig a little bit under the surface of that and understand how and why and whether we really can increase that to two trillion as John has laid down the gauntlet, so Mark, I just want to start with you and coming back to that figure, just set the scene for us about how that figure was achieved, with what was it achieved? What sort of structures are your clients going for? What are you seeing? 

Marc Schubert 

Thank you. So, one trillion pounds, amazing achievement, hopefully the next billion to come, to come soon. So we've seen our clients have used Guernsey for many, many years, and that's for a whole range of reasons. One of the key reasons that has already been mentioned by John is the amazing professionals in the jurisdiction who understand the industry. You can go to and explain what you want to achieve from a commercial perspective, and they will get it, whereas we sometimes have a more difficult experience elsewhere, whether it's perhaps been less history with these types of asset classes, maybe more of a “computer says no” kind of attitude from regulators or other service providers. Now in Guernsey, they know what they're doing. They've been doing it for a very long time, and they come with a very pragmatic focus, which is really important.  

Second key point, I think, is speed to market for a lot of our clients, and in particular this has come to the fore in the last few years, where the primary fundraising market has been a little bit more difficult. But of course, inprimary fundraising now, you've got perhaps 12 to 18 months fundraising period. But when you come to things like single asset deals or co-investments or other bespoke structures, sometimes those, the time frames of those will be determined by the underlying deal timetable, and you haven't got six to nine months to get a structure set up, we may have six to nine weeks, and Guernsey really comes to the fore there, because they can be flexible, they can be quick, they can be pragmatic. So for all those reasons, it's not just for the main fund structures like we've seen Guernsey use, but it's for things like SMA, joint ventures, continuation funds have been a big theme for as well recently, given the market conditions. 

Daisy McAndrew 

Just to add on to that, is that why we’re hearing so much chatter about deal-to-deal? 

Marc Schubert 

Yes, I think so, absolutely. I think in a deal-by-deal model, so to set the scene there a little bit, we’ve seen some players in the market struggle to raise blind pool funds or as quickly as they used to do, or others in the market, perhaps delaying their next blind pool fundraising until conditions among investors are more favourable. So what do they do in the meantime? Well, perhaps they might choose to do a single-asset deal where they identify an investment that they want to do, and then build a pool of capital from select investors around that particular investment. Now, again, when you're doing that, you haven't got months and months to get the structure set up. You need to do it quite quickly, and you need to do it in a jurisdiction where the regulation is not going to hinder you or hold you back from getting the deal done. 

Daisy McAndrew 

Lots of talk about that fleet of foot. Really interesting. And Paul, can I bring you in? You're a relative newbie to Guernsey, or your organisation is? Why Guernsey? 

Paul Cunningham 

I suppose the first part of that is what will it take for us to not be considered a newbie? We've been investing in or through Guernsey for probably just over 10 years now, so reasonable amount of time. Why did we go to Guernsey? When we first decided we wanted to invest in one of the Channel Islands - I'll be honest, our first choice was Jersey. I know before we started, we were given three words we shouldn't use. Okay, I'm afraid I’vejust broken the first one, I’ve dropped the ‘J bomb’, but the fact is, we went to Jersey, and everything else that we have done in the Channel Islands subsequently has been through Guernsey. The reasoning behind that is we had such a poor experience with the Jersey regulator. Frankly, someone told me, if you had done that deal in Guernsey, the GFSC wouldn't have caused you any of the problems that Jersey regulator did. So, we kind of gave it a go and 10 years later, we're still setting up funds in Guernsey. We've got numerous SPVs in Guernsey, and we've done nothing else in the ‘J’ island. 

Daisy McAndrew 

Very interesting. Kate, tell us your story of Guernsey experience.  

Kate Solway 

Yeah. So, we've got over 200 vehicles in Guernsey. So carry, co-invest, funds, SPVs, nominees, whole codes, GPs and some more I’ve probably forgotten. So that has given us plenty of opportunity to look at what really works for us. On the co-invest side, we started setting up four co-invests at a time, getting bank accounts, moth-balling them, and then when the co-invest opportunity comes up, they are there, ready to deploy. We’vesometimes got up to 20 co-investors alongside a fund so that's really helped us with operational efficiency. We've also, in the last couple of years, used a protected cell company GP with an associated manager. So we’vegot a new fund, set up new cell - don't need to go and get a new GP regulated, and then you're ready to go, which, again, has kept costs down and operational efficiency really high. 

Daisy McAndrew 

Tom, tell us from your search, I think you've been in Guernsey a pretty long time. Any different experiences from the other panellists? 

Tom Nield 

I mean, you’re right, certainly AnaCap has been in Guernsey from day one. We recently launched a continuation fund, which was probably the biggest test of our relationship with Guernsey and it really delivered on everything that we needed to do and I think that's really due to a number of key factors. Over the time that we've been in Guernsey, we’ve got great familiarity and network with the number of providers out there. We also know that the quality of those providers is very high, and they're used to doing things not just well, but I think to Mark's point, they are used to do things quickly, and in a continuation funds transactions, to your point, there is an underlying transaction happening as well. And so you don't have six to nine months - you referenced the razor funds. You've got to do things quickly. And really, the service providers in Guernsey, they get that. They work together. They get the transaction timetable and you're not having to overly explain and try and bring everyone on a journey. Theya re used to operating in those kinds of environments. 

Daisy McAndrew 

We've been hearing a lot about speed and how important that is, but what is it that means that things can get done faster in Guernsey? Is it just as you were saying there, you don't need to explain, perhaps, in as much detail. But are there other elements that make it a bit quicker? 

Tom Nield 

I mean, there's a number of elements. I think one of the fun things, just incorporating a limited company in Guernsey, one of the fun things, which we have on the form you fill in when you're doing that is how quickly you want it done. I think it starts off with within two hours, then within six hours and within a day. So those are the sorts of time frames we're talking about, which is materially different from having to engage lawyers who then have to engage a notary which then links to the opening of bank accounts, and these are some of the items that you might have to go through in other jurisdictions, which means that doing things in hours is just completely off the table. 

Daisy McAndrew 

That's interesting. And Kate, are you outsourcing services from other jurisdictions to Guernsey?  

Kate Solway 

Yeah, we are. So, we are based and headquartered in Guernsey. We have had a handful of cases where we've had to use other jurisdictions, which I wasn't going to name, but Paul has broken the rule so I may as well now. So we’ve had to put some funds in Luxembourg due to investor demand. What we've done is look at what really needs to be done in that jurisdiction, stripped everything back to just those services and delegated everything else back to our service provider network in Guernsey. And that for us, is driven by where the expertise is, the operational, the excellence, and that, you know, to Tom's point, that just means we can operate a lot more quickly within the restrictions of being in Luxembourg. You’ve probably heard the headline figures of it costing two to three million euros less to run a fund over a fund's life in Guernsey versus Luxembourg, and we've actually got two parallel structures. And I actually think the numbers will come in a lot higher than that. So in our case, it looks like it might come in sort of eight million dollars and that is going on to your NAV and onto your returns, and for anyone in the room interested, onto your carry.  

Daisy McAndrew 

And that eight million, what does that eight million look like? What does it consist of?  

Kate Solway 

Yeah, so AIFIM costs that you need to have when you're in Luxembourg, depository potentially, higher admin costs. And I think actually the time to do anything which, is materially longer. 

Daisy McAndrew 

Yes, because obviously that time does literally cost money, so yeah, I can see that's a double whammy. Paul, whilst we are comparing and contrasting, other service providers here - bankers, notaries, accountants, lawyers -how do other jurisdictions compare to Guernsey? 

Paul Cunningham 

I think before I answer that, if I just pick up on that. Eight million, that's a lot of obviously, a lot of money. But what that doesn't pick up is the sleepless nights, the extra grey hairs trying to deal with some of those other jurisdictions, just the general hassle factor of the EU, especially somewhere like, again, I'll use the second taboo word, Luxembourg, and the absence in some of those jurisdictions of quality legal advice, quality accountants, bankers that actually want to bank. And you look at somewhere like Luxembourg, and there isn't that depth of quality or experience. Despite Luxembourg still being the single largest jurisdiction for cross-border funds, too many of the accountancy firms, they don't understand private markets. The law firms, frankly, even the big names are generally quite weak, and you have a sort of squeeze between the banks and the regulator, where, for a regulated fund in Luxembourg, you have to have an account with a bricks and mortar Luxembourg bank, which are more interested in closing accounts than they are in opening them.  

And so, you don't tend to have those same issues with, for example, Guernsey and most of our fund structures have some sort of dual jurisdiction. I think we started off with Cayman as our primary jurisdiction. Then we went to a sort of Cayman-Mauritius structure. We're an Africa-focused fund, so I think there is an expectation that if we're going to use some jurisdiction, it would probably be Mauritius. But actually, even though that's not on my to do list, Mauritius is probably worse in terms of the availability and quality of the service providers. First off, we came and went on to one of the OECD grey list, then Mauritius were blacklisted as well, which is what brought us, from a fund perspective, over to Guernsey.  

We found that it was far easier to structure, even if we had a Cayman fund that was a Guernsey parallel to satisfy those investors that couldn't do Cayman, we had a Guernsey GP because the regulation in Guernsey allowed... It was far easier for a Guernsey team to manage a Cayman fund, or even a Mauritian fund, then it would have been the other way around. So, we still manage those vehicles out of the Guernsey team. I think our preference would have always been to just stick with now a Guernsey fund. We've had on our current offering to go back to Mauritius, but that's because there's a single LP with some bizarre local policy requirements. I think we’ll probably need to come to it later. Maybe there is some more PR type work that Guernsey Finance could do to address the issues that some particularly European investors might have, and – I'm going to use the third taboo word now - it's making sure that we completely dispel the notion of “tax haven”. 

Daisy McAndrew 

Tom, is that your experience, what Paul’s been laying out there of different experiences, different jurisdictions, difficulties therein? 

Tom Nield 

We haven’t moved around as much as Paul has – you've hit all the big ones there. We’ve gone to Luxembourg where we’ve needed to, and where we’ve needed to has been LP-led. Where some European LPs often are restricted from their LPs, or there are some roadblocks in the way from them using any offshore fund structure. So that's where we've had to move to Luxembourg. I mean, I think in all those experiences where that's been the case, that is just reinforced that in a number of the topics which have been covered on the panel already, that the small amounts of additional friction which just add up through the different processes and counterpartiesthat you need to deal with, often, where it's difficult to really assess what added value they’re bringing, it just generates cost, whether that's immediate cost or whether I's more time, which leads to cost.  

And I don't think it's really talked about enough, really, in terms of comparison, and you mentioned some statistics there, and it’s quite frankly boggling that number, which you came up with. But I don't think LPs are as aware as they should be of what these cost constraints are, because it's not the manager who's typically thinking about these costs, but it's the LPs, and it's really their back pockets which are being impacted. And so, I think where structural restrictions are embedded in some investors, I think there needs to be a sort of peeling back the curtain there a little bit to understand exactly why those restrictions. Are they real? Are they really aware of what the additional costs they are requesting from their desired structure. Is it clear to them, and indeed, clear to their investors as well?  

Daisy McAndrew 

That makes sense. Mark, I want to talk about some of the innovations and changes that have either happened or are happening. I know the Private Investment Fund regime changed last year and there’s more change to come.  

Marc Schubert 

Yeah, I think what’s great about Guernsey is that they respond to industry trends, they look ahead, they’re pragmatic, they are not shy about looking at other jurisdictions and seeing what has worked well over there. So, for example, Luxembourg has got the Special Limited Partnership. You can turn that into a cellular structure. Delaware now has a Series Limited Partnership. We're seeing some of our clients in the market use those in very interesting and innovative ways. So, Guernsey for example, if they were to bring in a similar limited partnership with a cell or series structure, I think that could be something that's quite useful as another tool in the toolbox to help the jurisdiction stay competitive. I think there are hurdles to that, especially in the fund space. Every time you introduce a new legal entity, there are questions around, how does it work? Are there any risks? Will there be pitfalls down the road? Certainly for cellular structures, the question tends to be, will that segregation of legal liability between the cells be respected in a legal claim or insolvency situations? So, if the jurisdiction can overcome those legal issues in a very clear way to give confidence to the managers that these structures will work as they're intended to. And I think that they would be a very useful addition to the toolbox. 

Daisy McAndrew 

And Kate on that similar theme, A) do you agree with Mark? And B) Are there other things that you can see innovation coming? 

Kate Solway 

Yes, completely agree with Mark's points, I think we need to be targeting specific high growth segments, as we've talked about, tokenised fund structures, secondary vehicles, continuation vehicles. I think we need to be using and capitalising what we've got on the ground. So, case studies - you're welcome to use my number - showing the speed, the cost, the execution advantages versus our peers. We need to be out there, we need to be highlighting these costs that investors are bearing of using other jurisdictions where they're saying, “No, I definitely need a European fund”, but do you? It's going to cost this much, do you really? We need to be using all ofthe knowledge that people in Guernsey have got and getting them out, giving this message, and I think we get need to be getting new managers into Guernsey, so the manager relocation incentives, such as those offered by the Funds Foundry. 

Daisy McAndrew 

And Kate, if I could just stay with you, also just picking up on what Paul said a moment ago. I think what Paul was implying is that perhaps Guernsey, it can sometimes be a bit backward in coming forward about itself, promoting itself and banging its own drums. Is that something you recognise? 

Kate Solway 

Yeah, I think we were very British about our achievement. So, we all in the room know this 1 trillion number, but are we out there shouting about it? And I think most people in the room who have experience of working with Guernsey and Luxembourg will say Luxembourg is challenging, a nightmare And so while we've got to be diplomatic, of course, about this, that message needs to be out there. I mean, it's so much better operating with Guernsey, with the service providers, everybody, and it's also so much cheaper. So why aren't we getting that message out there? 

Daisy McAndrew 

Tom, why do you think the message doesn't get out? Or first of all, do you agree that that message isn't clear enough? And if you do agree, why do you think that is?  

Tom Nield 

I don't think the message is clear enough. I think the overriding message is that Guernsey is a nicer place to do business and that people prefer it, but really it’s a numbers game. The numbers and the costs need to behighlighted far, far higher. I mean yes, it is a nicer place to do business, but then, when you overlay that with actually what the cost savings are, the efficiencies that you're bringing by using that jurisdiction versus others, andmost importantly, the impact on underlying investors returns that it could have. I mean, that really is the key differentiator and I think that’s the thing that really needs to be focused on.  

Daisy McAndrew 

And finally, just picking up to something about some of the points that John was making about taking advantage of the fact that English common law, a stable environment and calm and reliable and pragmatic. And then it got me thinking, yes, of course, Guernsey has all those things. The British Government currently does not have any of those things. It is far from reliable or stable – does that have an impact, what’s going on in Westminster, to how people do business in Guernsey, Paul? 

Paul Cunningham 

I'm not actually sure that that does. But I think there is the potential, though, that it is still seen as part of the British family. To many investors, that is clearly a positive. But to some investors, and I think in particular, some of the European institutions, that is very much seen as a negative, because we are in multiple jurisdictions, two of which are part of the British family, we have seen, to quote the words of Boris Johnson, what appear to be sort of punishment beatings for the non UK jurisdictions, but those that are otherwise part of the British family.  

Now, I think people might deny that that is case, it's almost the only explanation for some of the slightly strange behaviour that we've seen. For example, where one investor that we were trying to bring into a Guernsey fund started off insisting that, no, it had to be Luxembourg. When we said, okay, fine, we don't want you in the fund, if you want us to have another Luxembourg vehicle, suddenly, actually, Mauritius was okay. Now you can't tell me, from a governance or even from tax perspective, that Mauritius has been on various naughty steps is any better than Guernsey. And so, you start to think, why are they against Guernsey when they're okay with Mauritius? That’s where the sort of, post-Brexit political side of things comes into play. 

Daisy McAndrew 

Do you think that that is – I mean, from where I’m standing, I can’t see why anyone would choose Mauritius over Guernsey, and so, are you saying that the reason was Brexit, or do you think it's something else, and that maybe that weeding-out system is no bad thing? 

Paul Cunningham 

We don't know why, but I think it's a speculation that it is sort of Brexit-related. As I said that sort of way of punishing the UK family that they couldn't get away with otherwise. But having that sort of policy allows them to make what really on the face of it are strange, strange... there is no otherwise, no logic for that particular decision. 

Daisy McAndrew 

Yes, I think that’s certainly illogical. I’m going to wrap up this panel unless our panellists have anymore Jerry Springer-type final thoughts that they would like to leave us with because I’m aware that we’re running a little bitlate, and I don’t want to get to late into the coffee break. So, I'm going to bang my gavel and say “Going, going, gone”. That's fantastic. We've covered a lot of ground. Please can you show them your appreciation as they leave the stage.