What Can Stop You From Becoming A Registered Investment Advisor

How To Annals as an Investment Adviser

Partition of Investment Management
Links to New Material Added, October xiv, 1999

Introduction

If you are required to register with the SEC as an investment adviser, you must file Course ADV and keep information technology current by filing periodic amendments, including an annual amendment on Schedule I to Class ADV. You must also, amid other things: comply with the "brochure rule," which requires most directorate to provide clients and prospective clients with data nearly the adviser's business practices and educational and business background; maintain accurate and electric current books and records, equally specified by SEC rules; and be bailiwick to inspection and examination by the SEC staff. You too may be subject to limited forms of state regulation. These requirements are discussed below, and in the certificate "General Data on the Regulation of Investment Advisers." In add-on, please consult the Investment Directorate Human activity, the rules thereunder, and the instructions to the forms, all of which have been included in this booklet for your convenience.

Form ADV

Course ADV is the application for registration with the SEC every bit an investment adviser. Part I asks for information that is used to review the application and is used in the SEC's investment adviser regulatory program. Office 2 requires disclosure of the background and business practices of the investment adviser, and tin be given to clients of the investment adviser to comply with the "brochure dominion." In that location are also several schedules to Course ADV. You must file both parts of Form ADV and the advisable schedules with the SEC. Schedule I must exist filed with the SEC annually, regardless of whether information on the schedule has changed.

How Long Does it Take To Process Course ADV?

Within 45 days after y'all file your Form ADV registration application, the SEC must grant your registration or begin proceedings to deny it, assuming that you have fully and properly completed all items of the grade and accompanying schedules. The SEC staff volition render whatsoever Form ADV that is non fully and properly completed. A new 45 day flow volition begin when the Form ADV is resubmitted.

Amending Form ADV

SEC-registered advisers must update Form ADV annually by alteration Schedule I and whatsoever information on the grade that has become inaccurate. Instruction 10 to Form ADV specifies the blazon of information that must be corrected promptly, and the type that must be corrected within ninety days of the stop of the adviser'south financial year. Schedule I to Form ADV must be amended every yr, within ninety days of the finish of the adviser's fiscal year. If an adviser indicates on Schedule I that it is no longer eligible for SEC registration, the adviser must withdraw its registration within 180 days after the end of the adviser'due south fiscal year.

Amending the course requires completing the execution page (page ane of the form) and the entire page(due south) containing the updated item(south). Circle the items being amended. Rule 204-1 and the instructions to Form ADV give more than complete information on amendments.

Current Books and Records, Balance Sheets

All SEC-registered investment advisers must maintain truthful, accurate, and current books and records, every bit specified in Dominion 204-ii. Not all SEC-registered investment advisers, however, are required to submit financial statements to the Committee. SEC-registered investment advisers must file a balance sheet for the virtually recent fiscal yr if they have custody or possession of customer funds or securities, or if they crave prepayment of more than $500 in fees per client, six months or more than in advance. Come across Form ADV, Part Two, Detail 14, and Schedule G to Class ADV. If yous are required to submit a balance sheet, it must be audited by an contained public accountant. It is filed annually on Schedule G as an amendment to Course ADV. In addition, an adviser that has custody of customer funds or securities must adjust for an contained public accountant to perform a "surprise" inspection of the custody holding at some fourth dimension during the calendar twelvemonth, and the accountant's report of this examination must exist filed with the Commission equally an attachment to Form ADV-E.

Filing Requirements

Obtaining Forms

Copies of SEC forms, including Forms ADV and ADV-West, can be obtained from the SEC's Publication Unit in Washington, D.C. by calling (202) 942-4046, or by sending a written request to: Publications Unit, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street, NE, Mail Stop LL610, Washington D.C., 20549. There is no accuse.

Investment Adviser Registration and Withdrawal Forms are now available on the SEC website

Where to File

Submit all forms to:

U.S. Securities and Substitution Commission
100 F Street, NE
Washington, D.C. 20549
Attn: Filing Desk

Instructions

All of the forms, including Forms ADV and ADV-W, incorporate detailed instructions. Additional inquiries regarding the mechanics of completing and filing the forms should be directed to: Branch of Registrations and Examinations, SEC Operations Center, Mail Stop A-2, 6432 General Green Fashion Bulldoze, Alexandria, VA 22312; phone: (202) 942-8980.

Copies, Signatures, Names

All adviser filings must exist typed, and submitted in triplicate. Failure to submit three copies volition result in the filing being returned. The filing also may exist alleged delinquent when it is resubmitted. Yous should retain a fourth re-create of all filings for your records. Each copy of an execution folio must contain an original, transmission signature. Anyone executing a Form ADV or an amendment to Form ADV must use his total name unless the individual legally only has an initial. If the registration awarding is filed by a sole proprietor, it should exist signed by the proprietor; if filed by a partnership, it should be signed in the name of the partnership past a general partner; if filed past a corporation, it should exist signed in the corporation's proper name past an authorized principal officeholder. The signature to Form ADV must be notarized, or may be signed without notarization under penalty of perjury.

Fees

In that location are no fees for registration as an investment adviser, nor are at that place any fees for amendments or other filings.

http://www.sec.gov/divisions/investment/iaregulation/regia.htm