Information for Fund Managers

Information for Fund Managers

Global Edition

21 March 2024

                                                                                                                

Who we are and what we do

This document is for the information of managers / general partners of hedge funds, private markets funds and other alternative investment vehicles (together, “managers” and, individually, a “manager”, or “you”).

“We”, “our” and “us” are the Albourne Group, or just “Albourne”, comprising the parent company, Albourne Partners Limited (“APL”), its branches and its subsidiaries from time to time. At present, the subsidiaries are Albourne America LLC, Albourne Partners (Asia) Limited, Albourne Partners Japan, Albourne Partners (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Albourne Partners Deutschland AG, Albourne Partners (Canada) Limited, Albourne Partners (Cyprus) Limited, Albourne Partners (Bermuda) Limited and Albourne Cyprus Limited. APL has a branch in Bahrain.

Albourne is an investment consultant that was established in the UK in 1994 and is wholly owned by current and former employees. Today, it has over 600 employees located in offices worldwide. The principal offices are in London, San Francisco, Connecticut, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Cyprus and Tokyo.

Albourne provides research and advisory services in relation to its clients’ investments in hedge funds, private equity funds, real estate funds, real asset funds, long-only funds, private credit funds, dynamic beta products and other alternative investments. Albourne works for many prestigious professional investors around the world, comprising foundations, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, pension plans, family offices and financial intermediaries. We differ from many of our competitors because we do not manage any capital and we do not run a fund of funds.

To complement its research and advisory services, Albourne provides additional services to its clients. These include:

  • Portfolio Monitoring: Albourne provides periodic monitoring services on client portfolios, which can include the use of the client’s information to run quantitative analysis on the portfolio and the underlying funds, a qualitative assessment of the portfolio and further monitoring by reference to Albourne’s fund-level research and externally-gathered news (“Portfolio Monitoring”).
  • Implementation: Albourne offers middle- and back-office services (“Implementation Services”) to assist clients when they make their investments and to monitor and maintain those investments.

Albourne also constructs, maintains and administers indices with respect to hedge funds, dynamic beta products and private markets funds (each an “Index”, and together, “Indices”). These Indices are designed to measure the aggregate performance of a segment of the funds or dynamic beta products universe.

Regulation

A number of the Albourne companies are regulated. APL is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom. Albourne America LLC is registered as an investment adviser with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Albourne Partners (Canada) Limited is registered with the Ontario Securities Commission. Albourne Partners (Asia) Limited is regulated by the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong. Albourne Partners Japan is registered with the Kanto Finance Bureau. Albourne Cyprus Limited is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities & Exchange Commission (“CySec”). APL’s Bahrain branch is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain.

Data

APL owns and maintains Albourne’s secure internal central database, which stores both the data used generally in Albourne’s investment advisory business (“Reports Information”) and, separately, data received from or on behalf of clients (“Client Information”) in connection with client-specific services provided to those clients, such as Portfolio Monitoring and Implementation Services. Reports Information is the source of the information used in Albourne’s research reports held in the Albourne Castle, which is a secure, password protected internet portal for Albourne clients. The Castle can only be accessed by clients who have signed a service agreement with Albourne and, on a limited basis by selected prospective clients, in each case who have agreed to treat all confidential information obtained from the Castle as confidential.

Safeguards over data

We conduct pre-employment checks on all new members of staff globally. All staff are required to comply with strict confidentiality clauses and Albourne’s Group Compliance Manuals and Policies as part of their employment terms.

Our contracts with clients include strict confidentiality clauses that prohibit them from sharing our research beyond a pre-agreed client user group. All Albourne research reports bear confidentiality legends and are watermarked with the recipient’s name. Given the increasing use of cloud computing storage and services by entities in the financial sector, Albourne reminds its client Castle users that any use of such facilities by the client must include safeguards enabling the client to comply with its confidentiality obligations.

Albourne operates globally and stores data in various countries, including the UK, US, Hong Kong, Singapore, Cyprus, Canada and Germany. Data is monitored and secured to industry standards and complies with all relevant regulation.

Albourne Village

In addition to providing investment advisory services, APL runs a free, non-profit website called the Albourne Village. The Village provides links to news articles, industry research papers and job postings for the alternative investment fund community. The Village is run separately from Albourne’s core investment advisory business and other services mentioned above. Accordingly, we never post or otherwise disseminate any data obtained in connection with our fund due diligence activities on or through the Village website.

Our due diligence process

The extent of due diligence carried out by Albourne varies considerably, in response to client requirements. Any or all of the following steps may be taken:

  1. We interview portfolio managers to build an understanding of a firm’s strategy, investment process, portfolio, management team, risk process and performance. Our analysts seek to understand the key drivers of a given strategy and the inherent risks involved. This includes an assessment of the team and their professional backgrounds.
  2. We model the fund’s performance against key benchmarks, indices and the performance of peer funds. We try to identify correlations if they exist. We capture portfolio breakdowns as provided by the manager, review underlying investments to support analysis of a fund’s regional and industry exposures and provide trends in a graphical format. We also review underlying investments to support our analysis of a fund’s strengths and issues. We model AUM and fee trends and, for some clients, perform fee reconciliations.
  3. We obtain information concerning the manager and key individuals from various sources, including fund documents, surveys and interviews. Information obtained may include special category data and criminal records data (see “Personal Data / Privacy Notice” at the end of this document for further information). We also check the manager and names of key individuals against regulatory, legal, subscription and media databases (e.g., SEC, FCA, Bloomberg, Refinitiv World-Check, PACER, LexisNexis) to confirm matters, such as any regulatory registrations, regulatory status and history, litigation and disciplinary records, and to identify issues and information that may have an impact on our clients’ investment decisions. In some cases, we may seek explanation or clarification from the manager or the individual. Information from these searches and enquiries may be included in the reports we provide to our clients and selected prospective clients.
  4. We interview the COO, CFO, CCO, CTO and other key individuals involved in the middle and back office operations of the manager. The focus is on operations, systems and staffing, and our analysts may ask to examine certain documents and processes.
  5. In conducting its research, Albourne does not wish to receive any Material Non-Public Information from any person (including, but not limited to, any fund, manager or advisor). Please do not provide Albourne with Material Non-Public Information concerning your firm or fund or any of its investments unless expressly asked by Albourne to do so.
  6. We contact service providers, including fund administrators, prime brokers, auditors and lawyers, to confirm these service providers’ involvement with the manager and/or the fund. We also obtain character and professional references for key individuals involved with the fund. These references may or may not have been provided to us by the manager. We also undertake educational and professional qualification verifications and confirm past employment history of key individuals at the manager/fund.
  7. We capture fundraising information such as closing dates and relevant fund sizes.
  8. We review:
    • investor letters and other communications issued by the manager and summarise the key points. We may follow up with the manager if there are key changes, e.g., staff departures or changes of strategy or terms.
    • the financial statements of the fund, report on fund activity and performance and identify any issues for follow up. We reconcile the fund’s AUM and returns with newsletters and other sources and review the Notes.
    • offering documents, the principal contractual and constitutional documents and any supplements thereto, and summarise the terms.
  9. We review client-specific capital account statements, capital call and distribution notices and capture relevant performance activity to support portfolio-level performance analysis. We may follow up with the manager to clarify client-specific commitment and performance-related information.
  10. The results of our due diligence process are generally contained in written reports. Such reports and any associated ratings are only made available to our clients and selected prospective clients (on a confidential basis and subject to the protections referred to herein) and may contain personal data on the key and other individuals connected with the manager, the fund or the investment vehicle on which we have conducted due diligence. Albourne will not share its reports and any associated ratings with the manager or the fund or investment vehicle that is the subject of the report and rating.

The process described above also generally applies to any due diligence conducted for Albourne clients on any other investment (including, but not limited to, any non-fund investments, e.g., managed accounts and co-investments).

Albourne Indices

Albourne uses fund and dynamic beta product data provided by managers on an aggregated basis in its proprietary Indices. Where a fund has more than one share class, Albourne may include in an Index the returns of a representative share class only, or alternatively, a composite return series, in either case, as determined by Albourne.

Albourne may use the daily and historic levels of the Indices (aggregated as Indices) in internal and external presentations, reports, analyses and marketing materials, and may also make such daily and historic levels of the Indices publicly available, such as through publication on its website www.albourne.com, provided that the names of any Index’s constituents are only available to Albourne clients on a confidential basis.

Albourne’s clients and Index data subscribers may use the daily and historic levels of the Indices (aggregated as Indices) in their own internal and external presentations, reports, analyses and marketing materials.

For the avoidance of doubt, Albourne does not itself, or permit any party, including its clients, to use any Index in a manner that constitutes a regulated “use” as a benchmark under Regulation (EU) 2016/1011, the United Kingdom Benchmarks Regulation or any other similar or equivalent laws or regulations (as re-enacted, updated or replaced) in any other jurisdiction.

MoatSpace

Hedge fund, private markets fund and dynamic beta product data can be provided to us using MoatSpace, which is a web portal through which investment managers can submit information on their funds or client information at the request and on behalf of investors that are Albourne clients, and complete questionnaires. Data uploaded to MoatSpace is capable of being verified by the investment manager submitting the fund information and, in the case of Reports Information, may be viewed by our clients in Albourne’s reports.

Fund private placement memoranda and other general marketing documents together with LPAs and fund constitutional documents uploaded to MoatSpace or otherwise provided to Albourne, will not be provided to any client without a specific prior approval from the fund or its manager.

Contacts

For questions about due diligence, please contact the sender of this document or any Albourne analyst with whom you normally correspond. For questions on MoatSpace, please contact moatspace@albourne.com. For information about Albourne’s business generally, please contact your local Albourne office, details of which can be found at www.albourne.com.

Personal Data / Privacy Notice

Introduction

This Notice replaces all prior Personal Data / Privacy Notices of Albourne Partners Limited (“APL”) and its branches and subsidiaries (together with APL, the “Albourne Group” or “Albourne”) which may have been previously provided to you from time to time. Each member of the Albourne Group, whether a branch or a subsidiary, is in this Notice called an “Albourne Group Company” and, collectively, the “Albourne Group Companies”. This Notice has been drafted to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”) and any replacement or amended laws enforceable in the United Kingdom together with any and all other applicable privacy laws and standards in those jurisdictions in which Albourne conducts business (together “Applicable Data Laws”).

In respect of your personal data, Albourne Partners Limited, 16 Palace Street, London, SW1E 5JD, Tel +44 (0)207 346 7000, is the data controller.

General Notice and Purpose of Processing

Albourne takes its data protection and privacy responsibilities seriously.

Albourne will process personal data concerning you in the due diligence process as described above including professional or employment-related information (such as your job title, work address, email address, phone number, licensing and credentials, and disciplinary records), education information such as educational records and degree confirmations, and information that may be provided by you to us in any interviews or in response to our written requests.  We may also collect publicly available information that is lawfully made available from federal, state or local government records, such as civil litigation records and records of criminal proceedings. Albourne processes this personal data, which may contain data that is special category data[1] and criminal records data[2], in order to carry on its investment advisory business, and in particular, undertaking due diligence and analysis on funds, other investment opportunities, and any associated managers and advisers. Albourne does so in connection with fulfilling its contractual obligations to its clients who request such diligence and analysis for the purpose of evaluating investment opportunities.  

Your personal data may be provided to clients and prospective clients who have signed appropriate confidentiality undertakings with Albourne. In particular, your personal data may be included in research reports prepared for clients of Albourne.

Personal data may be collected from various sources, including meetings, calls, written communications with you and others, fund documents, the internet generally, internet search engines, publicly available records, subscription databases, administrative bodies, and educational institutions. These sources may include regulatory and disciplinary records, litigation records, and news and media reports. Such personal data may include special category data processed in connection with Albourne’s due diligence and analysis activities together with criminal records data.

If Albourne contacts individuals in search of references in respect of your professional performance and character, Albourne uses reference contact details provided by you, by your employer or by third parties which form part of Albourne’s own network of reference sources.

Albourne may also process your personal data in order to allow it to comply with its legal and regulatory obligations. Any uses of your personal data other than those set out in this Notice will be with prior notice or your advance consent, as required

Albourne will use your personal data (including special category data and criminal records data) to:

  • assess your skills, qualifications and suitability to manage investments;
  • make inferences in the due diligence process;
  • maintain records relating to its fund selection process and investment advisory business;
  • comply with contractual, legal and/or regulatory requirements; and
  • provide investment advice to clients. 

Please see our Information for Fund Managers Document for more information on what we do and how we interact with Managers and related individuals.

The bases on which Albourne processes your personal data

The bases on which Albourne will process your personal data will depend on the type of data being processed and your ordinary place of residence (the “Your Home Country”).

  • Your personal data that is not special category data or criminal records data

This data will be processed on the basis of the legitimate interest of Albourne and/or its clients or an equivalent or similar principle in Your Home Country. Where Your Home Country does not recognize legitimate interest or an equivalent or similar principle or right (other than seeking your consent) as a basis for processing your personal data, we will seek your consent to process such data.

  • Your special category data or criminal records data
    • Where we ask for your consent to process your special category data and criminal records data, such data will be processed on the basis of your consent, in accordance with the terms of Albourne’s Notice and Personal Data Consent form;
    • Where we do not ask for your consent to process your special category data and criminal records data, this data will be processed on the basis of:
      • where that data is your criminal records data, this data will be processed on the basis of a legitimate interest of Albourne and/or its clients in combination with the fact that:
        • such processing is required to be carried out in accordance with a regulatory requirement forming part of generally accepted principles of good practice for investors’ due diligence on the managers of their investments;
        • such processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest;
        • such records having been deemed to have been made manifestly public by virtue of you committing the criminal offence for which you have been convicted; or
        • such processing is otherwise permitted under applicable laws (including, but not limited to, the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and those of Your Home Jurisdiction) without your consent.
  • where that data is special category data, this data will be processed on the basis of a legitimate interest of Albourne and/or its clients in combination with the fact that such information has been manifestly made public by you. Where Your Home Country does not recognize legitimate interest or an equivalent or similar principle (other than consent) as a basis for processing your special category data, we will either seek your consent to process such data or not process your special category data.

Your rights 

Albourne will process personal data obtained via its due diligence processes fairly and in accordance with Applicable Data Laws. In particular, Albourne will ensure that your personal data is:

  • used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
  • collected only for valid purposes that Albourne has clearly explained and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
  • relevant to the purposes notified to you and limited only to those purposes;
  • accurate and kept up to date;
  • kept only as long as necessary for the purposes Albourne has told you about; and
  • kept securely.

If your personal data has been processed by Albourne, you have a number of rights in relation to how we process your personal data. These include:

  • access (the right to access the personal data Albourne holds about you);
  • rectification (the right to have any inaccurate personal data that Albourne holds about you corrected);
  • erasure (the right to delete your personal data where Albourne has no valid reason to continue to process it or where you have validly objected to your personal data being processed);
  • objection (the right to object to your personal data being processed where Albourne is processing such data on the basis of its legitimate interest or that of a third party);
  • restriction of processing (the right to ask Albourne to suspend the processing of your personal data, for example, if you want Albourne to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it);
  • portability (the right to have your personal data transferred to you or another party).

These rights are subject to applicable legal restrictions and Albourne may take reasonable steps to verify your identity before processing your request. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, you may contact Albourne’s Personal Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@albourne.com.

If you are located outside of the United Kingdom (UK) or the European Economic Area (EEA), you may have similar or additional rights, which are also exercisable by contacting us.

For the purposes of this section “processing” shall be interpreted in accordance with the GDPR.

You may withdraw your consent at any time by sending a request to the Personal Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@albourne.com.

Albourne may transfer your personal data outside of the UK or the EEA or Your Home Country in order to carry on its investment advisory business, to undertake due diligence and analysis on funds and to fulfil its contractual obligations to its clients. Your personal data may be transferred to and between various Albourne Group Companies globally, and in particular, amongst Albourne’s offices in the UK, United States, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Bermuda, Canada, Cyprus, Germany and Bahrain, to Albourne’s clients globally, subject to any confidentiality agreement Albourne may have with a fund manager, and to background check providers engaged by Albourne. Albourne shall ensure that, where a transfer of personal data to a country outside the UK, the EEA or Your Home Country is necessary, the data are protected by security measures that are appropriate to the risks presented by the processing and the nature of the data.

Security and Retention

Albourne takes appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the confidentiality and security of personal data it holds or transfers and to safeguard such personal data against unauthorised or unlawful use and against accidental loss, damage or corruption.

Albourne maintains a secure computing environment and an application security process that is monitored and regularly tested. Systems are certified to the ISO/IEC27001:2013 standard. Albourne makes use of Center for Internet Security templates and SANS best practice documents.

Albourne’s data centres all offer high levels of physical security. Key to the resilience of Albourne’s service delivery is that its data centres are geographically dispersed. If a technical failure occurs in any single data centre, users are redirected to one of the other data centres. Network services in the data centres are provided by separate companies, so that a failure on one company’s network does not affect the other data centres.

While all manager data is kept in Albourne’s data centres, Albourne uses Microsoft 365 for employee emails and internal document preparation, and consequently some manager data may be stored on the Microsoft 365 cloud during report writing. On the other hand, emails sent to funds@albourne.com remain on Albourne’s internal email system and are not routed via or stored on the M365 cloud.

Data is compartmentalised in accordance with appropriate access control lists and is not transferred outside Albourne except via our extranet websites. Albourne’s websites are currently rated as “A+” on Qualys’ SSL test and their security is tested twice every twelve months by an external security firm.

Internal penetration tests are performed regularly on the infrastructure and web application stack. Pre-employment screening checks are conducted on all employees.

Albourne will not keep personal data for longer than necessary and will dispose of any such data securely. Albourne uses a range of IT security tools on its network in order to protect the information held, including monitoring the sending of data and documents to recipients outside the network, in order to detect unauthorised sharing or transmission of personal data or Albourne confidential material.

Questions or concerns

If you have any questions about how Albourne uses your personal data, please email dataprotection@albourne.com. 

Should you have cause to complain about how we handle your personal data, please contact us in the first instance. We will do our best to resolve your concern. Alternatively, you may prefer to submit a complaint directly to the applicable data protection authority in the country in which you are located.  For UK individuals, this is the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.

Changes

Albourne may update or revise this Notice from time to time and shall notify you as and when it does so. If Albourne intends to use, process or disclose personal data for purposes materially different than those described in this Notice, Albourne will inform you before proceeding with the use, processing or disclosure.

Notice for California residents

This section provides additional information pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, applicable to information concerning California residents that constitutes “personal information” and “sensitive personal information” under the CCPA. 

If you are a California resident and the personal data constitutes “personal information” or “sensitive personal information” under the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the California Privacy Rights  Act), then Albourne may “sell” that personal data under the CCPA.

Albourne collects personal information about you in connection with Albourne’s diligence services for clients who are evaluating potential investment opportunities. Albourne will provide the information that is gathered on your behalf to those clients, sophisticated investors evaluating potential investments with your associated investment firm.

As described in this Notice above, if within the scope of the CCPA, such personal information includes:

  • your educational, professional and employment-related information, as well as inferences drawn from those;
  • your civil litigation and records of criminal proceedings; and
  • identifying information (such as a real name, aliases, postal address, email address, unique personal identifiers or other similar identifiers).

Where you have created a MoatSpace account with Albourne, we will collect your user name and password, and potentially your internet and electronic network activity information.

As part of its due diligence, Albourne collects much information from publicly-available sources.  In the event that sensitive personal information is provided directly to Albourne, these categories may include: racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, data concerning health, and data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation. Where Albourne collects your sensitive personal information, it is not for the purpose of inferring characteristics about you. Albourne will attempt to limit the inclusion of this type of personal information in its reports.

The purposes for which Albourne collects the above personal information and sensitive information are:

  • to assess your skills, qualifications and suitability to manage investments;
  • to conduct analysis during the due diligence process;
  • to maintain records relating to its fund selection process and investment advisory business;
  • to comply with contractual, legal and/or regulatory requirements; and
  • to provide investment advice and due diligence reports to clients. 

Albourne considers a number of factors in its evaluation of the retention period for your personal information. These include, but are not limited to, applicable law and policy that apply to the data.    Albourne will not keep personal data for longer than necessary and will dispose of any such data securely.  Albourne does not collect your personal information for purposes of cross-contextual behavioral advertising, as contemplated by the CCPA.

The third parties that Albourne provides your personal data to includes clients and prospective clients of Albourne, who are bound by certain confidentiality obligations to Albourne.  We may ask these clients and prospective clients to safeguard your personal data and to comply with all applicable laws and regulations regarding your personal data.

A California resident may have the following rights under the CCPA: the right to know what personal information Albourne has collected about you (including the categories of personal information, the categories of sources from which the personal information is collected, the business or commercial purpose, the categories of third parties to whom the business discloses personal information, and the specific pieces of personal information the business has collected about you), the right to delete personal information that the business has collected from you, the right to correct inaccurate personal information that a business maintains about you; the right to opt-out of the sale of personal information, and the right not to receive discriminatory treatment by Albourne for the exercise of privacy rights (including the right not to be retaliated against for the exercise of these rights).  

To make a request you may email us at dataprotection@albourne.com or contact us through the webforms listed in Albourne’s privacy statement at: https://www-us.albourne.com/albourne/privacystatement.  In most cases, you will be required to provide your name and business contact information, including business email address so that we can verify your request, and in some cases additional information may be required.  A California resident may also have the right to direct us to not sell the resident’s personal information.  To make an opt-out request, please go to: “California Residents – Do Not Sell My Personal Info” via this link: https://www-us.albourne.com/albourne/ccpa/optout.

Under the CCPA, California residents may use an authorized agent to make privacy rights requests. We require the authorized agent to provide us with proof of the California consumer’s written permission (for example, a power of attorney) that demonstrates authorization to submit a request for the California consumer. An authorized agent must follow the process described above to make a request, and we will also (a) require the authorized agent to verify the agent’s own identity and (b) confirm the agent’s authority with the California consumer about whom the request was made.

This Website is not intended for minors under the age of 18.

You can access the Albourne Privacy Policy and Processing Notice (“Privacy Statement”) at: https://www-us.albourne.com/albourne/privacystatement.


[1]‘Special category data’ includes racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.

[2] ‘Criminal records data’ includes personal data relating to any proceedings for any offence committed or alleged to have been committed by a person, the disposal of such proceedings or the sentence of any court in such proceedings.