Separating the function of director services from the administrator or legal advisor of investment funds has been a trend that one company in Cayman, Athena, has been quick to harness. Business Editor, Lindsey Turnbull, speaks with the company’s directors, Allison Nolan and Lisa Embleton, to appreciate the type of service they offer the international financial industry.

Appreciating and mastering market trends in the offshore finance world has been something that Cayman’s financial services industry has been extremely good at in recent years. Cayman attracts a particularly high calibre of staff from all over the world to man its financial services industry, whose innovation and sophistication has meant an extremely high level of service for its clients. Coupled with this has been the private sector’s excellent working relationship with the Cayman Islands government and the regulator, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), which has meant that Cayman has always been well poised to nimbly conquer such offshore investment vehicles as mutual funds, captive insurance and now hedge funds, quickly and efficiently establishing Cayman as the jurisdiction of choice for such business.   

Capitalising on Cayman’s current number one spot in the hedge fund league (with currently around 80 per cent of hedge funds domiciled in this jurisdiction) a new company called Athena International Management Limited was incorporated in January  of this year to provide directorship services primarily to the investment funds industry.
The brainchild of former Appleby partner, Allison Nolan, Athena has been developed taking advantage of Allison’s legal expertise and experience gained both in the UK and seven years of legal practice in Cayman.

As Managing Director of Athena, Allison explains, “In the UK, after training and working at the city of London law firm now known as Taylor Wessing, I established the legal department of Mitsubishi Corporation’s capital markets arm and was responsible for running a team that dealt mainly with the legal aspects of structured finance and trading derivatives, working very closely alongside the business professionals. During my years in private practice in Cayman I had a broad corporate practice encompassing hedge funds, private equity funds and structured finance and most recently led the international Appleby teams for investment funds and structured finance.  This gave me extensive experience and practical knowledge of the Cayman legal and regulatory framework, which together with my insight into the business elements of the financial industry, put me in an excellent position to offer services as an independent director of offshore vehicles.”
Allison says that the role of a director of an investment fund has developed considerably in recent years, with the impetus now on ensuring that the majority of the board of directors of a fund is independent not only from the manager/adviser of the fund but also from its service providers.

She says, “Good corporate governance is now high on the agenda of the promoters of investment funds and this can be best served by providing directors of a high enough calibre to ensure that the job is properly carried out. This means effectively mitigating risk via well written documentation and ensuring that the business of the fund is well understood and that board meetings are regularly held and attended.”

Allison continues, “It is also important for fund directors to appreciate the complexity of the transactions being carried out by such funds and for them to be fully able to discharge their duties in a competent manner. Specialist expertise in this type of business is of particular importance when it comes to directors as they may be required to direct a fund in many different aspects of the business including making recommendations on the provision of service providers such as administrators.”

According to Allison, there may be other situations when an independent set of directors is required, when for example a law firm cannot use its typical routes for the provision of directors because of a conflict of interest or if the provision of the directorship would fall outside of a service provider’s stringent manifest of the type of vehicle that they are able to provide directorships to.

Therefore Athena was established to provide a service for this niche in the market, providing directorships not only for investment funds, but any sort of offshore vehicle (such as structured finance vehicles and Cayman Islands registered investment managers) that require quality directors. Athena also provides voluntary liquidation services, primarily for investment funds that have ceased to trade.

At the same time as focusing on the provision of directorship services, Allison saw the potential for providing clients with corporate services as a complement to the directorship services and thus enlisted Lisa Embleton as another director of Athena, whose corporate services background meant a strengthening of the existing business.

Lisa states, “To have a registered office with the same Cayman Islands organisation that is providing a company’s directors, provides an enhanced range and quality of services for our clients and improves the flow of business considerably.”

Lisa has worked with some of the top financial services firms in Cayman, including law firms Ogier (Boxalls, as it was known then) and Myers and Alberga, as well as working with the corporate management team at Queensgate Bank. Lisa holds an institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators Certificate and has over eight years experience within corporate management.

In keeping with Athena’ pro-active approach to business, Allison has ensured that the company has obtained a Companies Management Licence issued by CIMA and that both she and Lisa have also been approved by CIMA as director service providers, even though the provision of such directorship services is not  strictly required to be so licensed.
She says, “I felt it was important for us to give clients the added comfort of knowing that Athena is regulated by the Authority and has to comply with certain CIMA reporting and audit requirements.  This also gave us the added advantage of being able to provide a full range of corporate services to complement the core business.”

Allison says that the company has invested heavily in IT, with remote access to document and email servers via the internet and a website that is continually evolving.

She concludes, “We wanted to ensure from the outset that Athena was fully able to provide the high quality, sophisticated level of service that is demanded by our international institutional and high net worth clients who are accustomed to the highest level of service within the financial services arena.”

Go to www.athena.ky  for more information.

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Based in the Cayman Islands, Athena International Management Limited is a sophisticated offshore provider of directorship services, primarily to the investment funds and structured finance industries, together with a comprehensive range of corporate services. For more information visit www.athena.ky