Investment advisory company Merchant Capital is setting up an umbrella platform for Ucits funds targeted at small and medium-sized manager.

The Irish-domiciled structure offers managers the systems required to run a Ucits fund, including an independent administrator in the form of PNC Global Investment Servicing and an independent board of directors.

Merchant Capital director George Cadbury said the umbrella would be attractive to funds that might not be able to join one of the platforms run by a larger organisation, such as Merrill Lynch or Schroders.

"A lot of the current platforms are very biased towards the larger managers," Cadbury said.

Cadbury said because the umbrella structure had "everything in place" it would speed up the time required to set up a Ucits fund, taking time down from three to six months to less than six weeks.

The first fund to be launched within Merchant's structure will be the Merchant Europe Equity Fund, run by Spanish management company Tressis. The fund will use an equity long/short strategy focusing on the Iberian peninsula.

The Tressis fund will launch with $25 million of assets under management (AUM). Cadbury said it was targeting between $300 million and $400 million AUM within two years.

He added that Merchant was talking to "eight or nine" other managers with a view to launching funds under the Ucits structure. Cadbury said Merchant was hoping to support "about $1 billion" in AUM by the end of 2010.

Managers joining the Merchant platform will not be tied down to a standard fee. At present the platform will not offer feeder capital.