The directors have proposed the liquidation of their company through a members’ voluntary winding-up while at the same time it is to terminate its listed Ucits fund range.
The Dublin-domiciled range is made up of the Aliquot Commodity ($35m), Agriculture ($20m) and Precious Metals ($4m) funds as well as its $4m Intelligent Portfolio Asset Allocation fund.
The directors were keen to stress that “this decision has been taken in isolation and does not impact on any other element of the Castlestone Management Limited’s (the Investment Manager) business”.
Castlestone Management Limited is the FSA-regulated manager and distributor of these four Ucits funds, and also rovides the management and distribution advice for the group’s BVI-domiciled funds.
However, the company has been dogged by problems with the regulator as well as a raft of employees leaving the firm in a short space of time, including its head of compliance, Ed Williamson, early in July.
In the same month, the FSA executed search warrants on the firm’s London and Chichester offices. At the time a spokesman for the firm said: “Castlestone continues to operate as normal.
The FSA visit has had no effect on either the funds managed by Castlestone domiciled in the British Virgin Islands or the Ucits funds domiciled in Ireland and all funds remain open for trading and will accept subscriptions and redemptions as per normal.”
Interestingly, this seems not to have influenced their decision-making process, with the directors saying “following due and proper consideration of issues affecting the funds including current market conditions, that the net asset value of the funds is currently below a minimum viable amount and that it is in the best interests of the relevant shareholders to terminate the funds”.
Their intention is for the termination to take effect from 10:00 tomorrow morning (11 August).
