Section 206 of the Investment Advisers Act prohibits fraud, deception or manipulation, regardless of whether the fund manager is registered. Once registered, Rule 206(4)-1 imposes additional restrictions on advertising that the SEC has determined would be fraudulent deceptive or manipulative.
The first item on the list of restrictions is testimonials. This prohibition reflects the concern that the experience of one customer is not necessarily typical of the experience for all customers.
Merely including a list of client names is not a testimonial, but could still be considered fraudulent. You can see that in the example of Reservoir Capital Management. Reservoir provided prospective clients a client list, which Reservoir described as “representative,” that consisted of the names of eight institutional investors. In the SEC’s view this created the impression that a substantial portion of Reservoir’s client base was institutional clients. The truth was that no more than fifteen percent of Reservoir’s assets under management were assets of institutional clients.
A list of all clients would unlikely to be considered a testimonial in violation of the rule. Once you start producing a partial list, the SEC gets considered that the inclusion or exclusion of clients on the list could be fraudulent or manipulative.
The SEC offered some additional guidance on including a partial list of clients in a 1993 No Action Letter to Denver Investment Adviser Associates. They came up with three conditions that need to be satisfied:
1. You can’t use performance based criteria in determining which clients to include in the list
2. The client list has a disclaimer similar to this: “It is not known whether the listed clients approve or disapprove of the adviser or the advisory services provided.
3. The client list includes a statement disclosing the objective criteria used to determine which clients to include in the list.
For a fund manager, the funds are the clients. However, I could easily see how this limitation could be taken the next step to investors in the funds.
Also keep in mind that the fact that a particular customer or consumer is a client could be considers nonpublic personal information, making it subject to Regulation S-P. Several states prohibit an investment adviser from disclosing a client’s identity
without consent.
Sources:
- Denver Investment Advisors, Inc. No Action Letter (1993 WL 313090)
- Cambiar Investors No Action Letter (1997 WL 528245)
- In the Matter of Reservoir Capital Management, Inc. IA-1717
- Section 206 of the Investment Advisers Act
- Rule 206(4)-1