Do not ask an open Pir to do a closed fund

The Pir is a strong tool both for the tax incentive and for the long-term perspective that distinguishes its strategy. Without this premise, undoubtedly 2018 was a difficult year for the price lists and therefore also for the performance, but not for the collection which remained positive and represents over 40% of the balance for the first 9 months of the year.

Some redemption, however, there was …

Pir open funds are liquid products, from which you can exit at any time if necessary. This on the one hand is a service for the customer who, although investing in the long term can redeem, but at the same time is an implicit limit because the fund can not invest in the most illiquid segment of the market. Open Pires do not invest in non-demobilized instruments, because they must guarantee the liquidity of the share. With a view to complementarity, there would also be development opportunities for closed funds.

Like the Eltif?

Yes, too. The Eltif are alternative funds closed and therefore could lend themselves to the purpose. However, in Italy they are not yet present. However, it is difficult to sell them to retail customers because the closed product is proposed as something that can not be left out.

However, the open Pir can invest a part in low liquid products.

Yes, there is a limit of 10%, but the theme is to understand what is meant by low liquid products. To give an example in this definition are certainly not the shares of a company that being entirely illiquid could not even enter into a small part in the assets of an open Pir.

What do you hope for 2019?

That the discipline of the Pir retains those characteristics that have ensured its success.

What is it referring to?

Amendments to the Budget Law are circulating, which would risk to cause it too much to become unworkable, such as the obligation to invest minimum shares in venture capital funds. You risk intervening on an instrument that works to make it do what it can not do, requiring the inclusion of very illiquid instruments in the portfolio. The positive aim of bringing resources to the economy pursued in this way risks to move away from the form of the open fund, which is also the only one that the Pirs have hitherto assumed.

But the Pir are often accused of investing little in SMEs.

Open funds can only be in the markets: 27% of assets are invested in mid-cap issuers, 3% in small caps and 2% in AIM. Unlike two years ago today Aim thanks to the Pir is considered a good entry point for many companies due to the wide availability of investors looking for opportunities. And it is also on these companies that the Pir invest: at the end of June they held 10% of the Aim’s free float. An open fund does not invest in the initial part, ie on start-ups, which are better suited to closed-end funds. These, however, today in the Pir form are not present on the market.