The chances are greater than ever that the Securities and Exchange Commission will show up in your lobby. Be prepared and have an introductory presentation for them. The SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations is continuing on its presence exam initiative. Those exams are shorter which means the examiners can get to more fund … Read more »
Category: Examinations and Audits
Never Been Examined by the SEC? Look in the Lobby
With the flood of new registered investment advisers after the enactment of Dodd-Frank, the Securities and Exchange Commission launched the presence exam program. The goal was to get to a big chunk of the newly registered fund managers. What got left out was the big chunk of investment advisers who had never been examined. That … Read more »
SEC Document Request Letters
As a fund manager one of the best ways to be prepared for a visit from the Securities and Exchange Commission is to practice. You should grab a recent document request from a SEC examination. Then give yourself one week to pull all the requested information together in a coherent package. I put together a … Read more »
OCIE Director Drew Bowden On Exams, CCO liability and more
IA Watch was able to get Drew Bowden, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Director of the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, to sit down for an interview. “The best thing [CCOs] can do is to be organized, be responsive and be helpful to the examination staff”. This can be measured by how timely you … Read more »
SEC Exam Priorities for 2014
Last year the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations at the Securities Exchange Commission laid out their examination priorities for 2013. Apparently, it is now an annual event. OCIE published its 2014 Examination Priorities. For advisers and fund managers the priorities list three core risks: Safety of Assets and Custody Conflicts of interest in the … Read more »
The SEC is coming! The SEC is coming!
These are my notes from the Private Fund Compliance Forum 2013. They are live notes, so please excuse my typos. One thing that this past year has shown us is that at some point or another, sooner rather than later, the SEC will come knocking. This session will show you how to effectively prepare for … Read more »
Don’t Overstate Assets Under Management
I’ve said it before: Don’t overstate assets under management. You need to keep records on your calculations and be able to prove the calculations. Umesh Tandon ran Simran Capital Management and was trying to land California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) as a client. The problem was that CalPERS required prospective investment advisers to have … Read more »
2013 SEC Examination Priorities
The Securities Exchange Commission published its examination priorities for 2013. They cover a wide range of issues at financial institutions, including broker-dealers, clearing agencies, exchanges and self-regulatory organizations, investment companies, hedge funds and private equity funds, and transfer agents. The scope of an IA examination is “generally limited to the issues and business practices of … Read more »
Valuations and the New Presence Exams
I’ve come across a new document request list for a presence exam from the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office. The exam period for the letter begins March 31, 2012 – the Dodd-Frank deadline for new advisers to register with the SEC. The SEC has said presence exams will target new advisers or those that manage private … Read more »
New Document Request List for Presence Exams
We’ve had the first siting of the new document request letter for the new presence exams. IA Watch has obtained a copy of the letter issued from the Atlanta Regional Office. This letter sets the exam period to start on March 30, 2012. That addresses some concerns that the SEC would look at period prior … Read more »