The Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB) has selected Pamela L. Klonaris for its 2010 Development & Promotion Award in recognition of her development of the SMART© Fund 006 Model.
The SMART Fund programme was designed to provide industry with a new Private Wealth Management tool with the flexibility to find application within areas not traditionally associated with investment fund administration. The primary facility offered by the SMART Fund concept is an open architecture which allows practitioners to design innovative structures, akin at times to special purpose vehicles, without reference to inflexible regulatory criteria predefined in legislation.
This open architecture always envisaged that increasing understanding and acceptance of the SMART fund idea would result in an increasing number of SMART fund models (defined by means of Templates) and this has been the case with six quite distinct templates currently on offer.
The most recent addition, SFM006, the ‘Side Pocket’ SMART was designed by Pamela Klonaris of Klonaris & Co. and had its genesis in the immediate aftermath of the recent financial crisis. As the Hedge fund industry faced a crippling level of investor redemptions coupled with relative illiquidity of some portfolio assets, restrictions on redemptions became commonplace. It was within this climate that the Bahamas SMART fund provided a facility to offer a tailored, customer focused alternative.
The Side Pocket SMART is designed to provide fund operators with a simple, inexpensive mechanism to remove illiquid investments from a fund portfolio whilst respecting fully the rights of current investors and creditors. With 75% approval of the existing shareholders and creditors the Side Pocket SMART allows the operators of an existing fund (the Parent fund) to transfer up to 30% of the portfolio into a new Side Pocket SMART, to be held without active management or administration for an unlimited period.
Klonaris & Co. is a boutique Firm established in 2001 with an extensive Securities, Private Client, Real Estate, Trust, Banking, Corporate and Immigration practice, whose clients include internationally recognized banks, brokerage firms, advisors, real estate investors and fund administrators as well as other international and domestic institutional clients and individuals. In particular, its expertise includes the representation of international and domestic clients in providing fund formation. Specialised advice is available for residential and commercial transactions and acquisitions, including island acquisitions, condominium and time-share development. Klonaris & Co. also represents numerous Private Clients to whom it provides trust and estate planning and family office services.
Mrs. Klonaris attended The University of The West Indies, (Jamaica & Barbados) and City University and the London School of Economics, University of London, both in London, England.
A member of the Bahamas Bar and Bar of England and Wales (Gray’s Inn) since 1989, Mrs. Klonaris began her career with Ansbacher (Bahamas) Limited in October 1989 where she became Manager, Corporate Services and In-house Counsel. In 1994, she moved into private practice with Callenders & Co., and currently as a partner at Klonaris & Co. practices principally in the areas of corporate and commercial law, banking and securities. She served as Chairperson of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) from 1999 to 2001 and Director of the Bahamas Financial Services Board from 2000 to 2004.
BFSB will present the award to Mrs. Klonaris at the upcoming Annual FSI Excellence Awards Dinner on October 22nd. At that time, BFSB also will announce the 2010 “Executive of the Year”,
“Professional of the Year”, “Achiever of the Year” and “FSI Student of the Year”. The Development & Promotion Award is an integral component of the [Excellence Awards Programme](https://bfsb-bahamas.com/news.php?cmd=view&id=2972&pre=y).