The rapid growth of the asset management industry has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of fund structures, including open-end mutual funds, closed-end funds, private equity funds and hedge funds. Fund sponsors and managers are constantly looking to boost their fund’s performance and assets under management by seeking credit from financial institutions such as banks and broker-dealers. This credit can be used for a variety of purposes, including settlement liquidity, funding periodic redemptions by hedge funds and daily redemptions by open-end funds, funding self-tenders by closed-end funds, commercial paper back-up, leveraging investments and bridging capital calls for private equity funds.

Bryan Cave has experienced a dramatic growth in our involvement in these credit transactions on behalf of financial institutions and fund complexes. We have recently closed, or are currently working on, transactions totaling in excess of US $7.5 billion. Fund financing legal work requires experience with the Investment Company Act, the Investment Advisers Act, margin regulations, Articles 8 and 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, tax laws, offshore financing issues and the intricacies of credit documentation.

Bryan Cave’s Fund Finance Team brings together lawyers with an in-depth understanding of each of these areas to best meet the needs of our clients, whether they are:

• financial institutions providing credit – in the form of uncommitted lines of credit, committed revolving credit facilities, term loans, master repurchase agreements or other structures – to one or more type of funds, or
• fund clients obtaining credit.

The Fund Finance Team meets the needs of the firm’s clients by:

• concentrating the required legal expertise within a single working group, which allows us to operate more efficiently and effectively,
• utilizing our in-depth knowledge of the evolving "market" terms for credit, and
• maintaining automated credit documentation that integrates all required forms for both speed of delivery and cost effectiveness on behalf of our lending clients.

We encourage you to contact any of the partners on the Fund Finance Team and to visit the pages listed in the right margin under REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE for examples of our recent and ongoing fund finance transactions.