Horia Gusta, president of AAF. Inquam Photos / Tudor Pană
Closed-end alternative investment funds will be able to grant loans to legal entities, announced on Thursday, the president of the Romanian Fund Administrators Association (AAF), Horia Gustă.
“It's a European directive from AIFMD 2 – Alternative Investment Directive 2. Basically, this directive says that alternative investment funds can make several alternative investments. One of them is the possibility to grant loans, but not the administrator, but the administrator on behalf of the fund. So, alternative investment funds will be able to grant loans, only they will not be able to be granted to consumers. It is for legal entities mainly, so not to consumers. There is another area. And there are some diversification rules. That's what the European legislator said, the directive was transposed into the Romanian legislation. Now, the Financial Supervisory Authority will have to issue a legal text by October 16, to make it happen: who, how, according to what criteria,” said Horia Gustă, on the occasion of a profile conference
He emphasized that these loans will only be granted by closed-end investment funds.
Let's not forget one thing: not all types of funds can. Mainly, closed-end alternative investment funds can give loans, that is, those where investors can't get out, and then the others can give loans, but they have to be careful to ensure, because you give the loan with the payment, I don't know, monthly, quarterly, it depends on the case by case, but you have to pay attention to the liquidity of the fund, so that when the investors come to redeem, there are resources in the fund, it's not the money given as a loan. So here there must be some adjustments for the administrator to make based on the secondary regulations as well. The law is published in the Official Gazette from December, it enters into force on April 16 and there are six months until October 16 for the authority to issue secondary regulations, without which no one can begin to give loans. So October 2026 is the deadline for the authority to issue regulations and the market will have three months to adapt', explained the AAF president.
Horia Gustă emphasized that granting loans will not be mandatory for investment funds, but only a possibility that they will have.
It will not be mandatory. Administrators can choose not to give loans, but there is this possibility that did not exist until today,' he said.
As for the interest that will be charged on these loans, the head of the AAF is of the opinion that they will be higher than those applied by the banks, because it is about returns.
Fund managers also need to do some credit risk analysis. Probably nobody can match the bank rates, so I think we are talking about higher returns, because AIF managers have to show returns to investors. If the interest rates are at the level of the banks, the yields cannot be higher, and then, I think that the interest rates will be a little higher', claimed Gustă. (Agerpress)
