The proposals aim to make the UK regime more proportionate and suggest different rules
applying to hedge funds, venture capital firms, and private equity houses.
By Nicola Higgs, Rob Moulton, and Jonathan Ritson-Candler
On 7 April 2025, the FCA published a Call for Input, and HM Treasury published an Open Consultation, on the reform of the UK regulatory regime for alternative investment funds (AIFs) and their managers (AIFMs), following the UK’s implementation of the EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) in 2013 and Brexit in 2020.
Both the Call for Input and the Open Consultation are open for comments until 9 June 2025. The FCA intends to consult on detailed rules in the first half of 2026 and HMT will publish a draft statutory instrument on the regulatory framework for UK AIFMs. Final rules will be published later in 2026, with a meaningful implementation period for firms, albeit the FCA intends to “remove unnecessary rules relatively quickly”.
The Call for Input and Open Consultation do not, however, intend to cover the totality of the proposed reform. Rather, at present, the publications are high-level. Therefore, until we see the detailed proposals, gauging the impact and utility of the reforms will remain difficult.