For some fund groups, the European Ucits III legislation - the latest in a line of directives on fund management from the European Commission - was not just a regulatory and compliance hurdle, but an opportunity to create new and innovative product ranges.
GSAM, the asset management arm of US investment bank Goldman Sachs, is a case in point. GSAM's London-based division was converting its Luxembourg funds to the new regime at the end of 2005, as new rules were being introduced, while drawing up proposals to test Luxembourg regulators with a raft of applications to approve equity, bond and commodity funds using derivatives in a variety of imaginative ways.
