The Center for Studies on Markets and Investments of São Paulo Law School (DIREITO SP) held, on June 24, another event in the series “Encontros do Mercado” (Market Meetings) - created in May 2013 to allow the exchange of experiences among professors and researchers of the Center for Studies on Markets and Investments, and professionals working in the capital markets.

In this edition, the event was attended by Mariana Magalhães Santos, a specialist in capital markets and investment funds of the Mattos Filho bureau. Mariana presented the theme "Structured Investment Funds: New Features", which discussed recent understandings of the Brazilian Securities Commission (CVM) related to the formation of funds for qualified investors. This is the case, for example, of certain Credit Rights Investment Funds (FIDCs,) recently submitted to CVM's analysis. "In them, the fulfillment of some requirements for products intended to qualified and overqualified investors were no longer needed," said the lawyer. These investors are characterized as individuals and companies that invest at least BRL 300,000 and BRL 1 million, respectively.

Mariana also mentioned cases of Equity Investment Funds (FIPs), often intended to invest in unlisted companies to make them grow in order to go public. "The CVM no longer requires an effective influence of the funds in companies through shareholder agreements, when it has up to 35% of its stock portfolio in the company's stock. The FIPs are quite used to fund startups, businesses in their early-stages and with a much defined focus, whose members are reluctant to lose control of the company, but need financing to grow," she explained.

With regard to Real Estate Investment Funds (FIIs), according to Mariana, the CVM has been more paternalistic, since retail products are much sought after by individuals. "These funds, unlike FIDCs and FIPs, are also regulated by law, and not only by the administrative regulation of CVM, unlike the others," she said.

In the opinion of the professor and coordinator of the Center for Research on Markets and Investments, Viviane Müller Prado, "There are a lot of administrative regulations and no legal regulation". And according to the senior professor Ary Oswaldo Mattos Filho, "it is very complicated for a country's legal system when the decision to intervene or not in a given issue is left to the regulator".