For aspiring Appointed Representatives and Fund Managers. Starmark was established in 1998. In 2005, Starmark Investment Management Limited (SIML) (previously Starmark Trading Limited) received authorisation from the Financial Services Authority, now the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to engage in investment management business. Over the years SIML has engaged in broking and fund management activities and has acted as Investment Manager for a number of offshore funds. Over the past year or so SIML has focused on providing regulatory umbrella services to facilitate activities of those who wish to advise/arrange transactions via the Appointed Representative (AR) route and aspiring fund managers who wish to manage/trade client money by way of a fund or managed account. This involves obtaining from the FCA the CF1 (AR) (director) and CF30 (customer) controlled functions for the AR and the CF30 controlled functions (directly under SIML) for fund management. We recognise that regulatory costs can be a big issue for start-up operations which often expect to have only a few million to manage in the early days, so we offer a very competitive pricing arrangement to try to reduce the pain. We believe that we can do this by strictly controlling our own costs and avoiding trying to be all things to all people, unlike the larger umbrella companies which mostly cover the whole range of clients including retail, with the consequently higher operating costs and regulatory risks. We have decided to avoid the retail market and deal only with professional clients. The costs of regulation when dealing with retail clients is (understandably) much higher than dealing just with professionals. Over the years we have established a close relationship with Ifina, www.ifina.com a global fund administration company. Ifina also focuses on the smaller start-up funds, dealing only with professional clients. They offer very competitive pricing and the full range of administration services across many jurisdictions. We currently act as investment manager for several funds administered by Ifina in the Cayman Islands and have previously worked with them in the BVI. The scope of SIML's activities can be viewed on the FCA Register under reference number 190249. SIML deals only with professional clients and is not authorised to hold client funds. If you are contemplating starting up a business as an Appointed Representative and/or in fund management please get in touch. Eldon Kerr [email protected] , or Allan Kerr [email protected]