UCITS Funds are an EU regulated product under the UCITS Directive. Licensed Malta UCITS funds are liquid and transparent retail products which are able to be marketed and distributed freely across the EU. A Malta UCITS Fund may be listed on the Malta Stock Exchange, is exempt from income and capital gains tax and is a vehicle which is exempt without credit. The minimum capital requirement for self-managed UCITS is €300,000.

MALTA FUNDS: 580+ investment funds with combined NAVof €9.7billion FINANCIAL SERVICES FRAMEWORK: EU and OECD approved BANKING SYSTEM: 10th soundest system in theworld (WEF) TOTAL ASSET VALUE UCITS:€ 2.4billion

FUND DOMICILE RECOGNITION: Rated No. 1 Europe’s favoured fund domicile (Hedge Fund Review’s 2013) 

TIMEZONE: Central European Time Zone (UTC+01:00) GDP GROWTH: 6.3% in 2015 TOTAL ASSET VALUE PIFS: €6.6 billion

• EU passporting
• Robust regulatory framework
• Flexible regulator
• Structure variants
• Lower setup and ongoing costs

The principal legislation governing Malta UCITS is the Investment Services Act, 1994 (ISA) as subsequently amended.

The local legal regime allows UCITS to be established using a variety of legal forms, each having characteristics suited for particular needs. In fact a Maltese UCITS may be set up as:

• A limited partnership whose capital is divided into shares
• A unit trust – constituted by a trust deed between a
• management company and a trustee.
• A common contractual fund
• An investment company with variable share capital (SICAV)

The most popular Maltese fund vehicles are investment companies with variable share capital (“SICAV”), usually established as openended
funds. SICAVs can also be established as umbrella funds.

• Approved service providers
• Reporting requirements
• Settle application/supervisory fee
• Fit & proper management and shareholding
• UCITS management company