Considerations on COM(2021)722 - Amendment of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 as regards fund rules and requirements pertaining to i.a. the authorisation, investment policies of European long-term investment funds - Main contents
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| dossier | COM(2021)722 - Amendment of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 as regards fund rules and requirements pertaining to i.a. the authorisation, ... |
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| document | COM(2021)722  |
| date | March 15, 2023 |
(2) The available market data indicate that the development of the ELTIF segment has not scaled up as expected, despite the Union’s focus on promoting long-term finance in the Union.
(3) Certain characteristics of the ELTIF market, including the low number of funds, the small net asset size, the low number of jurisdictions in which ELTIFs are domiciled, and a portfolio composition that is skewed towards certain eligible investment categories, demonstrate the concentrated nature of that market, both geographically and in terms of investment type. It is therefore necessary to review the functioning of the ELTIF legal framework to ensure that more investments are channelled to businesses in need of capital and to long-term investment projects.
(4) ELTIFs have a potential to facilitate long-term investments in the real economy. Long- term investments in projects, undertakings, and infrastructure projects in third countries can bring capital to ELTIFs and thereby benefit the economy of the Union. Such benefits can originate in multiple ways, including through investments that promote the development of border regions, enhance commercial, financial and technological cooperation and facilitate investments in environmental and sustainable energy projects. Investments in third country qualifying undertakings and eligible assets may bring substantial benefits to investors and ELTIF managers and to the economies, infrastructure, climate and environmental sustainability and citizens of such third countries. It should therefore be allowed that the majority of such assets and investments or the main revenue or profit generation of such assets and investments are located in a third country.
(5) The rules for ELTIFs are almost identical for both professional and retail investors, including rules on the use of leverage, on the diversification of assets and composition of the portfolios, on concentration limits and on limits on the eligible assets and investments. Both types of investors, however, have different time horizons, risk tolerances and investment needs. Because of those almost identical rules and the consequential high administrative burden and associated costs for ELTIFs destined for professional investors, asset managers have been reluctant to offer tailored products to such investors. Professional investors have a higher risk tolerance than retail investors and may have, due to their nature and activities, different time horizon and return objectives. It is therefore appropriate to provide for specific rules for ELTIFs that are destined to be marketed to professional investors, in particular with regard to the diversification and composition of the portfolio concerned, the minimum threshold for eligible assets, the concentration limits, and the borrowing of cash.
(6) It is necessary to enhance the flexibility of asset managers in investing in a broad categories of real assets. Direct or indirect holdings of real assets should therefore be deemed to form a category of eligible assets, provided that those real assets have value due to their nature or substance. Such real assets comprise immovable property, communication, environment, energy or transport infrastructure, social infrastructure, including retirement homes or hospitals, as well as infrastructure for education, health and welfare support or industrial facilities, installations, and other assets, including intellectual property, vessels, equipment, machinery, aircraft or rolling stock, and immovable property.
(7) Investments in commercial property, in facilities or installations for education, research, sports or development, or in housing, including in senior residents or social housing, should also be deemed to be eligible assets due to the capacity of such assets to contribute to the objectives of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. To enable real investment strategies in areas where direct investments in real assets are not possible or uneconomical, eligible investments in real assets should also comprise investments in water rights, forest rights, building rights and mineral rights.
(8) To promote accountability of investments and provide adequate disclosure on the impact of the investment strategy, investments in immovable property should be documented, including the extent to which real assets are integral to, or an ancillary element of, a long-term investment project that contributes to the Union’s objective of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
(9) It is necessary to increase the attractiveness of ELTIFs for asset managers and broaden the range of investment strategies available to ELTIF managers and thus to avoid the undue limitation of the scope of the eligibility of assets and investment activities of ELTIFs. The eligibility of real assets should not depend on their nature and objective or upon environmental, sustainability or social and governance related disclosures and conditions, which are already covered by Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 of the European Parliament and of the Council 12 and by Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council 13 .
(10) It is necessary to extend the scope of eligible assets and promote the investments of ELTIFs in securitised assets. It should therefore be clarified that, where the underlying assets consist of long-term exposures, eligible investment assets should also include simple, transparent and standardised (STS) securitisations as referred to in Article 18 of Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 of the European Parliament and of the Council 14 . Those long-term exposures comprise securitisations of residential loans that are secured by one or more mortgages on residential immovable property (residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS)), commercial loans that are secured by one or more mortgages on commercial immovable property, corporate loans, including loans which are granted to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and trade receivables or other underlying exposures that the originator considers to form a distinct asset type, provided that the proceeds from securitising those trade receivables or other underlying exposures are used for financing or refinancing long-term investments.
(11) In order to improve access of investors to more up-to-date and complete information on the ELTIF market, it is necessary to increase the granularity and the timeliness of the central public register referred to in Article 3(3), second subparagraph, of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 (‘ELTIF register’). The ELTIF register should therefore contain additional information to the information that that register contains already, including, where available, the Legal Entity Identifier (‘LEI’) and the national code identifier of the ELTIF, the name, address and the LEI of the ELTIF manager, the International Securities Identification Numbers (‘ISIN’) codes of the ELTIF and of each separate share or unit class, the competent authority of the ELTIF and the home Member State of that ELTIF, the Member States where the ELTIF is marketed, whether the ELTIF can be marketed to retail investors or can solely be marketed to professional investors, the date of the authorisation of the ELTIF, and the date on which the marketing of the ELTIF has commenced. In addition, to enable ELTIF investors to analyse and compare existing ELTIFs, the ELTIF register should contain up-to-date links to the ELTIF documentation, including to the rules or instruments of incorporation of the ELTIF concerned, the annual reports, the prospectus and, where available, the Key Information Document drawn up in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council 15 . To ensure an up-to-date status of the ELTIF register, it is appropriate to require competent authorities to communicate to ESMA any changes to the information on an ELTIF, including authorisations and withdrawals of such authorisations, on a monthly basis.
(12) Certain investments by ELTIFs can be conducted through the participation of intermediary entities, including special purpose vehicles and securitisation or aggregator vehicles or holding companies. Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently requires that investments in equity or quasi-equity instruments of the qualifying portfolio undertaking can only take place where those undertakings are majority owned subsidiaries, which substantially limits the scope of the potential scope of the eligible asset base. ELTIFs should therefore have the possibility to conduct minority co-investment in investment opportunities. That possibility should enable ELTIFs to obtain additional flexibility in implementing their investment strategies, to attract more promotors of investment projects and to increase the range of possible eligible target assets, all of which is essential for the implementation of indirect investment strategies.
(13) Due to concerns that fund-of-funds strategies can give rise to investments that would not fall within the scope of eligible investment assets, Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently contains restrictions on investments in other funds throughout the ELTIF’s life. Fund-of-fund strategies are, however, a common and very effective way of obtaining rapid exposure to illiquid assets, in particular in respect of real estate and in the context of fully paid-in capital structures. It is therefore necessary to give ELTIFs the possibility to invest in other funds, because that would enable ELTIFs to ensure a faster deployment of capital. Facilitating fund-of-fund investments by ELTIFs would also allow reinvestment of excess cash into funds as different investments with distinct maturities may lower the cash drag of the ELTIF. It is therefore necessary to expand the eligibility of funds-of-funds strategies for ELTIF managers beyond investments in European venture capital funds (EuVECAs) or European social entrepreneurship funds (EuSEFs). The scope of collective investment undertakings in which ELTIFs can invest should thus be broadened to undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) and to EU alternative investment funds (EU AIFs) managed by EU AIF managers. However, in order to ensure effective investor protection, it is also necessary to set out that where an ELTIF invests in other ELTIFs, in European venture capital funds (EuVECAs), in European social entrepreneurship funds (EuSEFs), in UCITS and EU AIFs managed by EU AIFMs, those collective investment undertakings should also invest in eligible investments and have not themselves invested more than 10 % of their capital in any other collective investment undertaking.
(14) In order to better use the expertise of the ELTIF managers and because of diversification benefits, in certain cases it can be beneficial for ELTIFs to invest all or almost all of their assets into the diversified portfolio of the master ELTIF. ELTIFs should therefore be allowed to pool their assets and make use of master-feeder structures by investing in master ELTIFs.
(15) The diversification requirements laid down in the current version of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 were introduced to ensure that ELTIFs can withstand adverse market circumstances. Those diversification thresholds imply, however, that ELTIFs are, on average, required to make ten distinct investments. In relation to investment in projects or infrastructures of large scale, the requirement to make ten investments per ELTIF may be difficult to achieve, and costly in terms of transactional costs and capital allocation. To reduce transaction and administrative costs for ELTIFs and ultimately their investors, ELTIFs should therefore be able to pursue more concentrated investment strategies and thus to be exposed to fewer eligible assets. It is therefore necessary to adjust the diversification requirements for ELTIFs’ exposures to single qualifying portfolio undertakings, single real assets, collective investment undertakings and certain other eligible investment assets, contracts and financial instruments. That additional flexibility in the portfolio composition of ELTIFs and the reduction in the diversification requirements should not materially affect the capacity of ELTIFs to withstand market volatility, since ELTIFs typically invest in assets that often do not have a readily available market quotation, may be highly illiquid, and frequently have long-term maturity or time horizon.
(16) Unlike retail investors, professional investors may, in certain circumstances, have a longer time horizon, distinct financial returns objectives, more expertise, possess higher risk tolerance to adverse market conditions and higher capacity to absorb losses. Such professional thus require less investor protection measure than retail investors. It is therefore appropriate to remove the diversification requirements for ELTIFs that are solely marketed to professional investors.
(17) Article 28 and 30 of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently require ELTIF managers or distributors to carry out a suitability assessment. That requirement is already laid down in Article 25 of Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council. 16 That duplicative requirement constitutes an additional layer of administrative burdens leading to higher costs for retail investors and is a strong disincentive for ELTIF managers to offer new ELTIFs to retail investors. It is therefore necessary to remove that duplicate requirement from Regulation (EU) 2015/760.
(18) Article 30 of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 also requires ELTIF managers or distributors to provide appropriate investment advice when marketing ELTIFs to retail investors. The lack of precision in what constitutes appropriate investment advice in Regulation (EU) 2015/760 and the lack of a cross-reference to Directive 2014/65/EU, which contains a definition of investment advice, have led to a lack of legal certainty and confusion among ELTIF managers and distributors. In addition, the obligation to provide investment advice would require external distributors to be authorised under Directive 2014/65/EU when marketing ELTIFs to retail investors. That would create unnecessary impediments to the marketing of ELTIFs to those investors. The distribution and marketing of ELTIFs should not be subject to stricter requirements than the distribution of other complex financial products, including the requirements for securitisations laid down in Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 of the European Parliament and of the Council 17 and for subordinated eligible liabilities laid down in Directive 2014/59 of the European Parliament and of the Council 18 . The obligation to perform a suitability test is sufficient to provide retail investors with the necessary protection and is in line with the existing obligations laid down Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 and Directive 2014/59. It is therefore not necessary to require distributors and managers of ELTIFs to provide retail investors with that investment advice.
(19) Article 30(3) of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently requires, for potential retail investors whose financial instrument portfolio does not exceed EUR 500 000, an initial minimum investment in one or more ELTIFs of EUR 10 000, and requires that such investors do not invest an aggregate amount exceeding 10 % of that their financial instrument portfolio in ELTIFs. When applied together, the EUR 10 000 minimum initial investment participation and the 10 % limitation on aggregate investment create a significant obstacle for the retail investor to invest in ELTIFs, which conflicts with the goal of an ELTIF to establish a retail alternative investment fund product. It is therefore necessary to remove that EUR 10 000 initial minimum investment requirement and the 10 % limitation on aggregate investment.
(20) Article 10, point (e), of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently requires that eligible investment assets, where those assets are individual real assets, have a value of at least EUR 10 000 000. Real assets portfolios, however, are often composed of a number of individual real assets which have a value of less than EUR 10 000 000. The value of individual real asset should therefore be reduced to EUR 1 000 000. That amount is based on the estimated value of individual real assets which may typically form large real assets portfolios, and may thus contribute to the diversification of an investment portfolio.
(21) Article 11(1), point (b)(ii) of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently requires that qualifying portfolio undertakings, where those qualifying undertakings are admitted to trading on a regulated market or on a multilateral trading facility, have a market capitalisation of no more than EUR 500 000 000. Many listed companies with a low market capitalisation, however, have a limited liquidity which prevents ELTIF managers from building, within a reasonable time, a sufficient position in such listed companies, which narrows down the range of available investment targets. In order to provide ELTIFs with a better liquidity profile, the market capitalisation of the listed qualifying undertakings in which ELTIFs can invest should therefore be increased from maximum EUR 500 000 000 to maximum EUR 1 000 000 000. To avoid potential changes to the eligibility of such investments due to currency fluctuations or other factors, the determination of the market capitalisation threshold should only be made at the time of the initial investment.
(22) Managers of ELTIFs that hold a stake in a portfolio undertaking may place their own interests ahead of the interests of investors in the ELTIF. To avoid such a conflict of interests, and to ensure sound corporate governance, the current version of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 requires that an ELTIF only invests in assets that are unrelated to the manager of the ELTIF, unless the ELTIF invests in units or shares of other collective investment undertakings that are managed by the manager of the ELTIF. It is, however, an established market practice that one or several investment vehicles of the asset manager co-invest alongside another fund that has a similar objective and strategy as that ELTIF. Such co-investments by the AIF manager and other affiliate entities that belong to the same group allow for the attraction of larger pools of capital for investments in large-scale projects. For that purpose, asset managers typically invest in parallel with the ELTIF in a target entity and structure their investments through co-investment vehicles. As part of the asset management mandate, portfolio managers and senior personnel of the asset managers are typically required or expected to co-invest in the same fund that they manage. It is therefore appropriate to specify that the provisions on conflict of interest should not prevent an ELTIF manager or an undertaking that belongs to that group from co-investing in that ELTIF and co-investing with that ELTIF in the same asset. In order to ensure that effective investor protection safeguards are in place, where such co-investments take place, ELTIF managers should put in place organisational and administrative arrangements designed to identify, prevent, manage and monitor conflicts of interest and ensure that such conflicts of interest are adequately disclosed.
(23) To prevent conflicts of interests, avoid transactions that do not take place on commercial terms and to ensure sound corporate governance, the current version of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 does not allow the staff of the ELTIF manager and of undertakings that belong to the same group with the ELTIF manager to invest in that ELTIF or to co-invest with the ELTIF in the same asset. It is, however, an established market practice that the staff of the ELTIF manager and of other affiliate entities that belong to the same group, which co-invest alongside the ELTIF manager, including the portfolio managers and senior personnel responsible for the key financial and operational decisions of the ELTIF manager, are often required or expected due to the nature of the asset management mandate to co-invest in the same fund or the same asset in order to promote the alignment of financial incentives of that staff and the investors. It is therefore appropriate to specify that the provisions on conflict of interest should not prevent the staff of the ELTIF manager or of undertakings that belong to that group from co-investing in their personal capacity in that ELTIF and from co-investing with that ELTIF in the same asset. In order to ensure that effective investor protection safeguards are in place, where such co-investments by the staff take place, ELTIF managers should put in place organisational and administrative arrangements designed to identify, prevent, manage and monitor conflicts of interest and ensure that such conflicts of interest are adequately disclosed.
(24) Article 13(1) of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently requires that ELTIFs invest at least 70 % of their capital in eligible investment assets. This high threshold for the composition of eligible investment assets in ELTIFs’ portfolios was initially established in view of the focus of ELTIFs on long-term investments and the contribution such investments would make to the financing of a sustainable growth of the Union’s economy. Given the illiquid and idiosyncratic nature of certain eligible investment assets within ELTIFs’ portfolios, however, it may prove difficult and costly for ELTIF managers to manage the liquidity of ELTIFs, honour redemption requests, enter into borrowing arrangements, and execute other elements of ELTIFs’ investment strategies pertaining to the transfer, valuation and pledging of such eligible investment assets. Lowering the eligible investment assets threshold would enable ELTIF managers to better manage the liquidity of ELTIFs.
(25) Leverage is frequently used to enable the day-to-day operation of an ELTIF and to carry out a specific investment strategy. Moderate amounts of leverage can amplify returns, and, where controlled adequately, without incurring or exacerbating excessive risks. In addition, leverage can frequently be used by a variety of collective investment undertakings to gain additional efficiencies or operational results. Since the borrowing of cash threshold is currently limited to 30% of the capital of the ELTIF, ELTIF managers may be unable to successfully pursue certain investment strategies, including in the case of investments in real assets, where using higher levels of leverage is an industry norm or is otherwise required to achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns. It is therefore appropriate to increase the flexibility of managers of ELTIFs to raise further capital during the life of the ELTIF. In view of the possible risks that leverage can entail, ELTIFs marketed to retail investors should be permitted to borrow cash amounting to up to 50 % of the value of the capital of the ELTIF. The 50 % threshold is appropriate given the overall borrowing of cash limits common for funds investing in real assets with a similar liquidity and redemption profile. As for ELTIFs marketed to professional investors, however, a higher leverage threshold should be permitted, because professional investors have a higher risk-tolerance than retail investors. The borrowing of cash threshold for ELTIFs that are marketed to professional investors only should therefore be extended to 100 % of the ELTIF capital.
(26) To provide ELTIFs with wider investment opportunities, ELTIFs should be able to borrow in the currency in which the manager of the ELTIF expects to acquire the asset. It is, however, necessary to mitigate the risk of currency mismatches and thus to limit the currency risk for the investment portfolio. ELTIFs should therefore either put in place adequate hedges of the currency exposure, or should borrow in another currency where foreign currency exposures do not bring about significant currency risks.
(27) ELTIFs should be able to encumber their assets to implement their borrowing strategy. To address concerns about shadow banking activities, however, cash borrowed by ELTIFs should not be used to grant loans to qualifying portfolio undertakings. However, to increase the flexibility of ELTIFs in executing their borrowing strategy, the borrowing arrangements should not count as borrowing where that borrowing is fully covered by investors’ capital commitments.
(28) Given the increase of the maximum thresholds for borrowing cash by ELTIFs and the removal of certain limitations on the borrowing of cash in foreign currencies, investors should have more comprehensive information on the borrowing strategy and limits employed by the ELTIF. It is therefore appropriate to require ELTIF managers to explicitly disclose in the prospectus of the ELTIF concerned the borrowing strategy and the borrowing limits and to provide information on how leverage will contribute to the ELTIF strategy and how currency and duration risks will be mitigated.
(29) Article 18(4) of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently requires that investors in an ELTIF may request the winding down of that ELTIF where their redemption requests, made in accordance with the ELTIF’s redemption policy, have not been satisfied within one year from the date on which those requests were made. Given the long-term orientation of ELTIFs and the often idiosyncratic and illiquid asset profile of ELTIFs’ portfolios, the entitlement of any investor or a group of investors to request the winding down of an ELTIF can be disproportionate and detrimental to both the successful execution of the ELTIF investment strategy and the interests of other investors or groups of investors. It is therefore appropriate to delete the possibility for investors to require the winding down of an ELTIF where that ELTIF is unable to satisfy redemption requests.
(30) The current version of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 is unclear about the criteria to assess the redemption percentage in a period of time, and about the minimum information to be provided to competent authorities about the possibility of redemptions. Given ESMA’s central role in the application of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 and its expertise about securities and securities markets, it is appropriate to entrust ESMA with the drawing up of draft regulatory technical standards specifying those criteria and that information.
(31) Article 19(1) of the current version of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 requires that the rules or instruments of incorporation of an ELTIF do not prevent units or shares of the ELTIF from being admitted to trading on a regulated market or on a multilateral trading facility. Despite that possibility, ELTIF managers, investors and market participants have hardly used the secondary trading mechanism by for the trading of shares or units of ELTIFs. To promote the secondary trading of ELTIF units or shares, it is appropriate to allow ELTIF managers to put in place a possibility for an early exit of ELTIF investors, before the end of the ELTIF’s life. In order to ensure an effective functioning of such a secondary trading mechanism, such an early exit should be possible only where the manager of the ELTIF has put in place a policy for matching potential investors and exit requests. That policy should, among others, specify the transfer process, the role of the ELTIF manager and the ELTIF administrator, the duration of the liquidity window during which the units or shares of the ELTIF could be exchanged, the execution price, pro-ration conditions, disclosure requirements, fees, costs and charges and other conditions pertaining to such a liquidity window mechanism.
(32) Article 26 of the current version of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 requires that ELTIF managers set up local facilities in each Member State where they intend to market ELTIFs. The requirement to set up local facilities has, however, been removed by Directive (EU) 2019/1160 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 19 as regards UCITS and alternative investment funds marketed to retail investors, since such local facilities create additional costs and friction to the cross-border marketing of ELTIFs. In addition, the preferred method of contact with investors has shifted from physical meetings at local facilities to direct interaction between fund managers or distributors and investors by virtue of electronic means. Removing this obligation from the ELTIF Regulation for all ELTIF investors would hence be consistent with Directive (EU) 2019/1160 and the contemporary methods of marketing of financial products, and could promote the attractiveness of ELTIFs for asset managers who would no longer be required to incur costs stemming from operating local facilities. Article 26 should therefore be deleted.
(33) The current version of Article 21(1) of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 requires ELTIFs to adopt an itemised schedule for the orderly disposal of their assets to redeem investors' units or shares after the end of the life of the ELTIF. That provision also requires ELTIFs to disclose that itemised schedule to the competent authorities. Those requirements subject ELTIF managers to substantial administrative and compliance burdens, without bringing a corresponding increase in investor protection. In order to alleviate those burdens without diminishing investors protection, ELTIFs should be required inform the competent authority of the ELTIF about the orderly disposal of their assets to redeem investors' units or shares after the end of the ELTIF’s life, and only provide the competent authority of the ELTIF with an itemised schedule where they are explicitly asked by the competent authority of the ELTIF to do so.
(34) Adequate disclosure of fees and charges is critically important for the evaluation of the ELTIFs as a potential investment target by investors. Such disclosure is also important where the ELTIF is marketed to retail investors in the case of master-feeder structures. It is therefore appropriate to require the ELTIF manager to include in the annual report of the feeder ELTIF a statement on the aggregate charges of the feeder ELTIF and the master ELTIF.
(35) Regulation (EU) 2015/760 requires ELTIF managers to disclose in the ELTIF prospectus information about fees related to investing in that ELTIF. Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council 20 , however, also contains requirements concerning the disclosure of fees. In order to increase transparency on the fee structure, the requirement laid down in Regulation (EU) 2015/760 should be aligned with the requirement laid down in Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014.
(36) It is an established market practice that the portfolio manager or senior personnel of the ELTIF manager are required or expected to invest in ELTIFs managed by that ELTIF manager. Such persons are presumed to be financially sophisticated and well-informed about the ELTIF concerned. In those circumstances, it is superfluous to require those individuals to undergo a suitability assessment test for investments in the ELTIF. It is therefore appropriate not to require ELTIF managers or the distributors to carry out a suitability assessment for such individuals.
(37) The prospectus of the feeder ELTIF may contain highly relevant information for investors, which enables investors to better assess potential risks and benefits of an investment. It is therefore appropriate to require that in case of a master-feeder structure the prospectus of the feeder ELTIF contains disclosures on the master-feeder structure, the feeder ELTIF and the master ELTIF, a description of all remuneration or reimbursement of costs payable by the feeder ELTIF and a description of the tax implications of the investment into the master ELTIF for the feeder ELTIF.
(38) Article 30(7) of Regulation (EU) 2015/760 currently requires that investors are treated equally and prohibits preferential treatment of individual investors or groups of investor, or the granting of specific economic benefits to those investors. ELTIFs may, however, have several classes of shares or units with slightly or substantially distinct conditions as regards the fees, legal structure, marketing rules and other requirements. In order to take those differences into account. It should be specified that those requirements should only apply to individual investors or groups of investors that invest into the same class or classes of ELTIFs.
(39) Regulation (EU) 2015/760 should therefore be amended accordingly.
(40) In order to give ELTIF managers sufficient time to adapt to the new requirements, including the requirements pertaining to the marketing of ELTIFs to investors, this Regulation should start to apply six months after its entry into force.