With the US Securities and Exchange Commission calling private equity fund managers to the carpet for their fees and expenses, managers had better start preparing to be a lot more forthcoming about their practices to investors. Regulatory exams are just around the corner, warn operations and legal experts. At issue is what expenses should be absorbed by private […]
Valuation Disputes: Process for Everyday Crisis
Internal analysis at a fund management shop sets the price of a non-exchange traded security at $US80 — the most recent trade price that could be found. However, the third party evaluations provider used by the fund manager says it’s worth no more than US$60 based on projected future cash flows and taking into account the illiquid market. What’s the […]
Shareholder Ballots: The Quest to Confirm a Vote
An investor receives information about a corporate agenda and casts its votes. It happens every day of the week and most frequently from February through June when most US firms hold their annual meetings. But just because a shareholder votes, doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any way to verify the vote made its way to the issuer, […]
New Criteria for US Accredited Investors: Looming Pain for Alt Funds?
The Securities and Exchange Commission might think it is protecting Americans from risky investments as it considers changing the criteria for defining accredited investors, but middle and back-office executives at hedge fund management shops are worried their livelihoods and client service levels are at risk. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act requires the SEC to […]
US SEC: Will It Finally Address CUSIP Fees?
After years of complaining about the fees they are paying for the issuance and use of CUSIP codes, issuers of fixed-income securities and the financial firms which use the securities identifiers may finally have found a friend at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The US regulatory agency isn’t investigating CUSIP Global Services’ licensing fees […]
Fund Managers: On the Hunt for New Cybersecurity Officer
With the Securities and Exchange Commission now requiring registered investment advisors to prove they are doing their best to reduce the risk of data and other security breaches, hedge fund managers are quickly waking up to the need to assign a dedicated chief security information officer (CISO) to the task. Although the SEC’ s guidelines […]
Hedge Fund Managers: The Big Headache of Healthcare Reform
FinOps takeaway: Your count of “full-time employees” may not be what the IRS says it is. Mainstream attention on the controversial US healthcare legislation has focused on how difficult or financially affordable access to health insurance may be for individual people. For employers, there is a far larger and only slowly emerging story in the huge difficulty and cost they […]
Money Market Fund Managers: SEC Ships New Operational Challenges
After years of uncertainty about how regulatory reform would play out, money market fund managers may be relieved to know finally how they will be regulated by new rules adopted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. But the news won’t be particularly comforting to the operations, compliance and technology staff of the funds, which represent a third of […]
Alt Mutual Funds: Seeking Alpha under SEC Scrutiny
If it looks like a duck, but honks like a goose, is it a duck or is it a goose? As far as the US Securities and Exchange Commission is concerned, the duck can honk all it wants, it still has to live by duck rules. The regulatory agency is making certain that mutual funds that act like […]
Monitoring Proxy Advisory Firms: A New Compliance Challenge?
Proxy advisory firms are supposed to help fund managers decide how to vote their shares in annual or other corporate meetings and even cast votes for them. But that doesn’t mean fund managers should just let them do all the work and forget about it. Apparently that’s what the US Securities and Exchange Commission thinks […]