Glossary

The main terms of structured funds, regulation and applied AI — explained plainly.

Fund structures

Structured fund: An investment fund with a more complex structure than traditional (fixed income or equity) funds — such as FIP, FIDC, FII and FIAGRO. Typically closed-ended and aimed at qualified or professional investors, with specific rules for setup, valuation and distribution — though some types (such as many FIIs) are accessible to retail investors on the exchange.
FIP (Private Equity Fund): A closed-ended fund that invests in equity stakes of companies (shares, convertible debentures and other securities), taking part in the decision-making of its portfolio companies. Widely used for private equity and venture capital in Brazil, under CVM regulation.
FIDC (Receivables Investment Fund): A fund that invests most of its assets in credit rights — receivables originated from commercial, financial or service operations. It is usually structured into senior and subordinated shares — and, in some structures, mezzanine shares — with different levels of risk and payment priority.
FII (Real Estate Investment Fund): A fund that invests in real estate assets — physical properties, real-estate-linked securities (such as CRIs) or shares of other real estate funds. Its shares are typically traded on the exchange.
FIAGRO (Agribusiness Investment Fund): A fund created by Law 14.130/2021 that invests in agribusiness-linked assets — rural real estate, equity stakes in agribusiness companies and agribusiness credit rights (such as CRA and CDCA). It may take a real-estate, receivables or private-equity form, and its shares typically trade on the exchange.
Share class and subclass: Under CVM Resolution 175, a single fund may have multiple share classes with segregated assets and their own rules, and each class may have subclasses differentiating, for example, target audience, fees and rights, while sharing the class's portfolio. This allows sharing one structure while keeping assets segregated.
Open-ended and closed-ended fund: The distinction concerns share redemption. In an open-ended fund, the shareholder may request redemption from the fund itself under its rules; in a closed-ended fund, shares can only be redeemed when the fund terminates (or through scheduled amortizations), and an early exit occurs by trading the shares on the secondary market. FIPs, FIDCs and most structured funds are closed-ended.
Fund rules (regulamento): The document that sets out how the fund operates — investment policy, target audience, fees, subscription, amortization and redemption rules, and the rights and duties of shareholders and service providers. It is the fund's main internal governing instrument, filed with CVM.

Participants

Shareholder (cotista): An investor who holds shares of a fund. Each share represents a fractional interest in the fund's net assets, and the shareholder participates in results in proportion to the shares held.
Asset manager (gestora): Responsible for managing the fund's portfolio — the investment and divestment decisions within the fund's policy. Must be authorized by CVM to perform portfolio management.
Fiduciary administrator: Responsible for the fund's setup and ongoing operation, representing it and answering for its legal and regulatory obligations, including bookkeeping, CVM reporting and oversight of service providers.
Custodian: The institution responsible for the custody of the fund's assets and for settling transactions, safekeeping securities and ensuring the integrity of positions.
Distributor: Responsible for distributing the fund's shares to investors, including product suitability to the investor profile and compliance with offering rules.
Investment consultant: A provider that recommends buying, selling or holding securities on a personalized basis, without managing the portfolio or holding assets in custody. An activity authorized and supervised by CVM, distinct from management and distribution.
Registrar (escriturador): The institution responsible for keeping the fund's share register — maintaining the record of shareholder ownership and movements (issuances, transfers, amortizations and redemptions), ensuring the integrity of each investor's position.
Independent auditor: An auditor registered with CVM responsible for auditing the fund's financial statements and issuing an opinion on their conformity with accounting and regulatory standards, lending credibility to the information provided to shareholders and the regulator.

Operations and valuation

Share (cota): A fractional interest in a fund's net assets. The share value is the net asset value divided by the number of outstanding shares, and its variation reflects the portfolio's performance.
Net assets (PL) / NAV: The total value of a fund's assets minus its liabilities — the Net Asset Value (NAV). It is the basis for calculating the share value and one of the main indicators of a fund's size.
Capital call: A request to shareholders to pay in part of the capital they committed to contribute. Common in FIPs, where committed capital is drawn down as the fund makes investments.
Committed capital: The amount a shareholder commits to contribute to a fund over time, paid in through capital calls as the fund makes investments. Common in FIPs, where not all capital is paid in at once.
Capital contribution (integralização): The actual payment of funds by a shareholder in exchange for subscribed shares, making them paid-in. It may occur in a single payment or in installments, through capital calls, as set out in the fund's rules.
Redemption (resgate): The return to a shareholder of the value of their shares, with the corresponding cancellation of those shares. In open-ended funds it occurs at the shareholder's request under the fund's rules; in closed-ended funds, as a rule, only at the fund's termination.
Mark-to-market: Updating the value of portfolio assets to market prices, so that net assets and the share value reflect the current value of investments rather than only the acquisition cost.
Amortization: The return of part of the capital to shareholders, reducing the share value or the number of shares, without constituting a redemption. Frequent in closed-ended funds over their life.
Administration, management and performance fees: The fees charged by a fund. The administration fee pays for administration and operation (a percentage of net assets); the management fee pays for portfolio management; and the performance fee rewards the manager when returns exceed a reference benchmark, as set out in the fund's rules.

Regulation and governance

CVM (Brazilian Securities Commission): The federal agency that regulates, supervises and develops the securities market in Brazil, including investment funds and their service providers.
ANBIMA: The Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association. It acts in market self-regulation and issues best-practice codes for fund administration, management and distribution.
CVM Resolution 175: The regulatory framework that consolidated and modernized the general rules for investment funds in Brazil, replacing prior rules and introducing, among other points, the structure of share classes and subclasses and the possibility of limited liability for shareholders (when provided for in the fund's rules).
Qualified and professional investor: Categories of investor defined by CVM regulation according to knowledge and financial capacity, determining access to products and lighter disclosure regimes. A professional investor includes, among others, those holding more than BRL 10 million in financial investments who attest to it in writing (as well as financial and regulated institutions); a qualified investor includes, among others, those holding more than BRL 1 million who attest to it, or who hold a relevant certification. Several structured funds are restricted to qualified or professional investors.
Suitability: The duty to verify that a product or service is suitable for the investor's profile — objectives, financial situation and knowledge — before recommending or distributing it, so as to avoid offering products incompatible with the investor's risk profile.
KYC and AML/CFT: Know Your Customer and Anti-Money-Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism. A set of routines for identifying and understanding the client, monitoring transactions and reporting suspicious activity to the authorities, required of service providers to mitigate the risk of market abuse.
Non-resident investor (INR): An individual or entity resident or domiciled abroad that invests in the Brazilian market under the regime of CMN Resolution 4,373, through local registration and representation and compliance with specific foreign-exchange and tax rules.
General meeting of shareholders (AGC): The fund's highest decision-making body, in which shareholders resolve on matters such as amendments to the fund's rules, replacement of service providers, extraordinary amortizations and other matters within their remit, according to the applicable quorums. It may be held in person or electronically.
Compliance: The set of practices and controls that ensure an operation conforms to laws, regulatory rules and internal policies, reducing legal, regulatory and reputational risk.
Audit trail: A chronological and ideally immutable record of every relevant operation, decision and change — with author, timestamp and context — allowing the history to be reconstructed for control, audit and regulatory response.
Due diligence: The process of prior investigation and verification of an asset, a portfolio company or a counterparty, to assess risks, compliance and the suitability of a transaction before deciding.

Technology and AI

AI agent: AI-based software able to perform tasks in a domain autonomously, based on goals, data and available tools, under defined supervision and controls.
Multi-agent architecture: An approach in which multiple specialized AI agents, each in a domain (for example, compliance, risk or operations), work in a coordinated way — with permissions and history — to handle complex processes.
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation): A technique in which a language model, before answering, retrieves relevant passages from a dedicated document base and uses them as context — improving accuracy and enabling answers grounded in specific, up-to-date sources.
Zero Data Retention (ZDR): An arrangement with the AI provider under which data sent for processing is not retained or used for training after the request is served, reinforcing the confidentiality of information.
Electronic signature and ICP-Brasil: Means of signing documents digitally with legal validity. ICP-Brasil is the Brazilian public-key infrastructure that issues legally recognized digital certificates, enabling qualified signatures (for example, in the PAdES standard) with authenticity, integrity and non-repudiation.
LGPD (Brazilian data protection law): The Brazilian General Data Protection Law (Law 13.709/2018), which governs the processing of personal data in Brazil, setting legal bases, data-subject rights and security and governance obligations.

Informational and educational content. It does not constitute legal, regulatory or investment advice.

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