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August 03, 2010 at 08:00 PM
In a July 30 letter to the Investment Company Institute (ICI), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) urged funds that used derivatives to “assess the accuracy and completeness of their disclosure,” and to use tailored disclosure statements that addressed how derivatives would be used in a particular fund, rather than depending on standardized disclosures.
“In determining the appropriate disclosure, a fund should consider the degree of economic exposure the derivatives create, in addition to the amount invested in the derivatives strategy,” wrote Barry Miller, associate director in the SEC’s Office of Legal and Disclosure. “This disclosure also should describe the purpose that the derivatives are intended to serve in the portfolio (e.g., hedging, speculation, or as a substitute for investing in conventional securities), and the extent to which derivatives are expected to be used.”
Among the SEC’s concerns about current disclosure statements is that information provided is too generic. Disclosures are “of limited usefulness” to investors, according to Miller’s letter to the ICI, and fail to demonstrate how “the fund’s investment adviser actually intends to manage the fund’s portfolio and the consequent risks.”
Furthermore, while some of these “generic disclosures” are limited in scope, others are too long or too technical, with details of potential derivative transactions and no indication of relevance to investment operations.
