ESMA’s guidelines on performance fees in UCITS and certain types of AIFs

[ESMA 34-32-352 AIFMD Q&A, Section 15, 7] No. Based on paragraph 37 of the guidelines, performance fees: should be paid only where positive performance has been accrued during the performance reference period; could be paid in case the fund has overperformed the reference benchmark but had a negative performance. The above also applies in case of delegation by the authorised AIFM to different delegated portfolio managers. Therefore, in case of a global underperformance of the fund, performance fees should not be paid to those delegated portfolio managers who have overperformed.