We have advised BFT Gestion (the Paris based hedge fund manager owned by Credit Agricole) on two recent hedge fund transactions.

BFT Flexible Allocation is a newly created leveraged fund of hedge funds managed by Olympia Capital Management SA, having a flexible capability on investment strategies.

BFT have raised leverage for this Fund by entering into an OTC swap with NATIXIS to provide a money market type return on shares in the Fund issued to NATIXIS, as approved by the Irish Financial Regulator.

BFT have recently cloned BFT Long Only Equities (an Irish institutional long-only hedge fund created in 2002) with a newly created UCITS retail fund in Luxembourg to be marketed to French investors.

BFT Gestion and its sub-investment manager (Cap West SA) will continue to manage both funds and will use the cloning technology developed by CACEIS.

The team at LK Shields Solicitors was led by Joe Gavin and Tracy Gilvarry in Banking and Financial Services.

December 2007.