Azimut has become the first asset management company in Luxembourg to obtain authorisation to manage indirect investments in virtual assets strategies, with plans to launch an unrgulated Luxembourg fund AZ RAIF Digital Assets which invests indirectly and prominently in virtual assets.
Azimut, with its Luxembourg-based product platform Azimut Investments SA, obtained authorisation from the Luxembourg supervisory authority, Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), to manage investment strategies based on virtual assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other sub-asset classes such as DeFi tokens.
The authorisation allows Azimut Investments to extend its AIFM licence to manage alternative investment funds (AIFs) that will give exposure to virtual assets.
Azimut will launch the AZ RAIF Digital Asset fund, the first fund under Luxembourg law and second in Europe, which will invest in cryptocurrencies, digital assets, Exchange traded fund, funds and equity of fintech or blockchain-linked companies. The fund will be only for professional clients.
AZ RAIF Digital Assets will allow exposure to cryptocurrencies in a dynamic, diversified way and within an active risk management framework. The portfolio will be managed to extract returns from an active allocation to sub-asset classes and will allow investors to participate in the full range of opportunities offered by Digital Assets without having to manage the technical and financial complexities typically associated with a new investment vehicle.
The Fund will be managed by the Group's investment hub in Singapore.
The launch of this new fund is part of a wider project involving digital assets that the Group is conducting through its Global Asset Management Team and which led to the issue last April of AZIM, the first security token in the world to be promoted by a management company.
AZIM is a digital securitisation of a €5m portfolio of loans to Italian small and medium-sized enterprises, originated on the Borsa del Credito platform and guaranteed by the Mediocredito Centrale Guarantee Fund which is used in the construction of portfolios of Luxembourg alternative credit funds dedicated to professional clients.
Giorgio Medda, Co-Ceo and Global Head of Asset Management for the Group, commented: "The licence is a source of great satisfaction and recognition of the commitment and work we are doing to meet the needs of our customers now and in the future and to find new sources of revenue.
We have been approaching the world of virtual assets for some time, exploring their underlying technologies and potential, following a global approach of risk and opportunity management on which the AZ RAIF Digital Asset fund is also based.
The product initiative is aimed at long-term investment objectives over longer diversification horizons for our clients' portfolios in an extremely dynamic market environment for this asset class".
