Declan Quilligan of Citco Fund Services (Ireland) Limited, considers the future of the hedge fund industry and the effect Covid-19 has had on a variety of operations and procedures.

AlphaWeek’s Greg Winterton spoke to Nik Perros, Head of Private Equity at fund services provider Citco Fund Services (USA), Inc., to understand trends in the PE fund administration space.

Alternative fund managers are not experiencing the same liquidity crunch as they did during the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008, and many now have an additional tool to protect investment funds from potential mass redemptions due to the increased prevalence of  the investor-level gating mechanism over the past decade.

COVID-19 has impacted the most basic actions associated with investing in the alternatives sector: namely, if managers do not update their technology capabilities, they will have to physically print, sign, scan and email subscription forms, redemption requests and other fund documents while working from home (“WFH”).