Of the 400 attendees at the London conference 33% said real estate was the biggest area of growth, while 27% believed the most potential lay in private equity.
They also said that most opportunity would come from outside of Europe, with 37% calling Asia the most interesting growth market and 26% identifying Africa and Latin America.
The conference was attended by lawyers, asset managers and other UK-based funds professionals.
The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) was discussed during two panel sessions.
Introduced in July 2013, the AIFMD regulates EU fund managers that mange alternative investment funds (AIFs), fund managers who manage AIFs established in the EU, and fund managers that market the units or shares of an AIF in the EU.
Jersey, UK and global funds and regulatory experts including Tajinder Singh, deputy secretary general, international organisation of securities commissions said fund managers should not be afraid of the complex regulatory requirements of AIFMD.
Geoff Cook, chief executive officer, Jersey Finance, said: “Given Jersey’s specialist expertise in fund governance, we see real opportunities for managers to draw on that and outsource their administration needs to Jersey to help facilitate increasingly complex exporting requirements under the AIFMD.
“Flexibility, expertise and clarity are key for asset managers and, with its ability to offer ongoing AIFMD-compliant private placement into Europe and a non-European regime entirely outside the scope of the AIFMD, we feel Jersey is extremely well placed to support real estate and private equity growth.”
