1 Investors are natural and legal persons, as well as general and limited partnerships, which hold units in collective investment schemes.

2 Collective investment schemes are open to all investors, except where this Act, the fund regulations or the articles of association restrict investor eligibility to qualified investors.

3 Qualified investors within the meaning of this Act are professional clients as defined in Article 4 paragraphs 3–5 or Article 5 paragraphs 1 and 4 FinSA¹:²

3bis ... ³

3ter Qualified investors also include retail clients for whom a financial intermediary in accordance with Article 4 paragraph 3 letter a FinSA or a foreign financial intermediary that is subject to equivalent prudential supervision provides portfolio management or investment advice in accordance with Article 3 letter c items 3 and 4 FinSA within the scope of a permanent portfolio management or investment advice relationship, provided they have not declared that they do not wish to be treated as such. Such declaration must be made in writing or in another form demonstrable via text.: ⁴

4 ...⁵

5 The FINMA may fully or partially exempt collective investment schemes from certain provisions of the financial market acts within the meaning of Article 1 paragraph 1 of the Financial Market Supervision Act of 22 June 2007⁶ (FINMASA), provided that they are exclusively open towards qualified investors and that the protective purpose of this Act is not impaired, specifically from the provisions concerning: ⁷

• a.^{8 ...}
• b.⁹ ...
• c. the requirement to produce a semi-annual report;
• d. the requirement to provide investors with the right to terminate their invest- ment at any time;
• e. the requirement to issue and redeem units in cash;
• f. risk diversification.

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