The fund manager, Active Fund Services suspended the Channel Island-listed MSAF, in October last year, explaining at the time that “continuing net redemptions…have exhausted the cash reserves more quickly than they can be replenished”.
The announcement explained that in the preceding July, the fund had around 10% of its net asset value, which at the last available valuation at the end of August stood at £282m, “in cash or near cash”.
Active added that “over the past two months this figure has fallen due to increasing redemptions”.
Offering some explanation as to why the fund suffered such a high number of redemptions, the directors said: “…due to quite a sudden change in market sentiment caused by other funds in the sector, this has precipitated recent redemptions from the [fund’s] cells to be higher than normal and it has simply not been possible to maintain this level of cash without selling an asset quickly (or borrowing to pay shareholders that are trying to redeem).”
The MSAF is a cell of The International Mutual Fund PCC, an existing open ended protected cell company approved by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission and listed on the Channel Islands Stock Exchange.
The law firm, Regulatory Legal Solicitors, is already representing investors seeking redress from financial advisers which sold products including the Bandeaux student accommodation funds and the Axiom legal financing fund.
Last week, paralegal Tobias Haynes told International Adviser it was also seeking to get in touch with investors in the LM Investment Management range of Australian property funds.
“Investors in the MSAF find themselves in the same troublesome situation as those in the Brandeaux investments,” Haynes said.
“As a result we are now inviting investors who have been advised by UK regulated financial advisers to join our action group. We invite anyone who is a low/medium risk investor who is invested in any offshore based property investment opportunity (such as Brandeaux or MSAF) to get in touch as we can assist to recover their monies which are more than likely locked in the UCIS investments.”
