Cayman Islands' "Tax Heaven" Discussion Politically Motivated? Expert Roundtable Says Offshore Jurisdictions Needed for Innovation, Efficiency

Cayman Islands' "Tax Heaven" Discussion Politically Motivated?  Expert Roundtable Says Offshore Jurisdictions Needed for Innovation, Efficiency

George Town, June 16 2009 -- The Cayman Islands are by far the largest offshore domicile for the establishment and administration of investment funds, the second largest offshore center for captive insurance and a significant banking and structured finance hub. A newly published Opalesque Roundtable examines on 29 pages what is behind Cayman's success story and what the future holds for the jurisdiction.

In 1993, Cayman was the first offshore jurisdiction to pass specific hedge fund legislation. The process accelerated when the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority established the Investment and Services Division (ISD) in 1997. In this Opalesque Roundtable, Don Seymour, the previous head and founder of the Investment Services Division and a former Director of CIMA, highlights the innovations Cayman was and is still offering. Why did the global financial markets embrace Cayman funds to the extend that they dominate offshore finance for years now?

HEADWIND FOR CAYMAN ISLANDS

But Cayman is also facing some headwind at the moment. Are the Cayman really a "tax haven"? Or are certain stances against offshore structuring based on ignorance, if not part of a political agenda? What do people actually find when they come and visit the Cayman Islands, their workforce and regulatory as well as financial infrastructure?

This Opalesque Cayman Islands Roundtable was sponsored by KPMG and took place at their Georgetown, Cayman Islands office. Apart from Don Seymour, who now serves as Managing Director of dms Management Ltd., you will hear from:

• Jennifer Frizzelle, Partner with KPMG
• Darren Stainrod, Managing Director of UBS and Head of UBS Alternative Fund Services
• Peter Cockhill, Partner with Ogier

about the latest innovations from the Cayman and other essential developments within the alternatives industry:

• True stories and anecdotes from the 2008 hedge fund meltdown and why evaluation can be tricker than you think
• Why a counterparty quote may not be enough any more to evaluate level 2 or level 3 assets
• FAS 157 and more: how do auditors and administrators cope with the new accounting and evaluation requirements?
• What are the Sovereign Wealth Funds up to? More about emerging hedge fund structures

DOWNLOAD LINKS AND ARCHIVE ACCESS:

The Opalesque Cayman Islands Roundtable can be downloaded here: http://www.opalesque.com/RT/RoundtableCayman.html.  All other previously published Opalesque Roundtable Scripts can be accessed in the Roundtable archive:

http://www.opalesque.com/index.php?act=archiveRT

About Opalesque:

Matthias Knab, Director of Opalesque Ltd, moderates the Opalesque Roundtables. Matthias Knab is an internationally recognized expert on hedge funds and alternatives.

In 2003, with the publication of its daily Alternative Market Briefing, Opalesque successfully launched an information revolution in the hedge fund media space: "Opalesque changed the world by bringing transparency where there was opacity and by delivering an accurate professional reporting service." - Nigel Blanchard, Culross. This hybrid financial news service, which combines proprietary industry news stories and filtered third party reports, has been credited by many industry insiders with delivering precise, accurate, and vital information to a notoriously guarded audience.

Each week, Opalesque publications are read by more than 600,000 industry professionals in over 130 countries.  Opalesque is the only daily hedge fund publisher which is actually read by the elite managers themselves (http://www.opalesque.com/op_testimonials.html).