End-to-end fund management for sponsors structuring UAE onshore funds. Fund design, incorporation, active portfolio management, risk management, CMA compliance, and coordinated fund administration, custody, and audit.
Category 2 of the UAE Capital Market Authority's financial services licensing framework authorises the holder to act as Management Company (ManCo) for collective investment funds regulated under the CMA framework. Category 2 is the operative license for running a fund business onshore in the UAE: it covers the core activities of structuring the fund, managing its portfolio, overseeing compliance, and coordinating the network of service providers required for a regulated fund (administrator, custodian, auditor, distributor).
NIFM was granted its Category 2 license in 2020 (reference number 20200000221). The license continues in force under the restructured Capital Market Authority regime effective 1 January 2026.
NIFM designs fund structures tailored to the sponsor's specific objective — selecting the appropriate CMA-permitted vehicle type, drafting the fund documentation, coordinating with CMA on approval, and handling incorporation through to operational go-live.
Active management of the fund's investments in accordance with the investment strategy and restrictions documented in the fund prospectus. Portfolio construction, risk budgeting, trade execution oversight, and ongoing portfolio monitoring.
Identification, measurement, and management of the fund's market, credit, liquidity, and operational risks. Ongoing monitoring of exposures against the risk framework agreed with the sponsor and documented in the fund's risk policy.
Ongoing compliance with CMA regulations, AML/CFT requirements, investment restrictions, disclosure obligations, and periodic regulatory reporting. NIFM's Compliance function operates independently of portfolio management.
Appointment and oversight of the fund's service providers: the fund administrator (NAV calculation, subscriptions/redemptions, investor record-keeping), the custodian (asset safekeeping), and the independent auditor.
Where NIFM's Category 5 Promotion license is deployed alongside fund management, NIFM can act as a CMA-regulated distribution partner for the fund — engaging with UAE onshore investors and coordinating GCC distribution under the Gulf Funds Passporting Regime.
The UAE CMA's fund framework is comprehensive and offers fund sponsors a wide range of vehicle options — designed to accommodate everything from traditional open-ended mutual funds to sophisticated segregated-cell platforms.
NIFM is deliberately small. Every fund under NIFM's ManCo license is individually structured and individually managed, not fitted to a standardised platform template. Sponsors speak directly with the senior partners who make the structuring, regulatory, and investment decisions — not with a relationship desk routing queries to a team the sponsor never meets.
This matters most when a fund structure is unusual, when the sponsor's strategy is still being refined, or when cross-border distribution mechanics need to be solved alongside the fund's legal architecture. Standardised ManCo platforms handle simple fund structures well. They are considerably less helpful when the mandate is bespoke.