SEC to Take Up Accredited Investor Definition Changes on Dec. 18

The Investment Adviser Association “has long asked” the SEC to revisit its accredited investor definition “to allow all investors that are represented by SEC-registered advisors acting in a discretionary capacity to invest in private funds where that is consistent with the investors’ best interest,” Gail Bernstein, IAA’s general counsel, told ThinkAdivsor in previous interview.

Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, told ThinkAdvisor in a previous interview that the SEC’s concept release on harmonization of private offering exemptions, which centered on expanding the accredited investor definition, “made clear” that the SEC “doesn’t currently have the data necessary to make informed policy regarding the accredited investor definition, certainly not to justify any expansion of that definition.”

What the agency does know “suggests that only a tiny percentage of current accredited investors actually choose to invest in private offerings,” Roper said. “And there’s no evidence of demand from non-accredited investors.”

— Check out Investor Advocate Barbara Roper Doesn’t Mince Words on SEC Rules on ThinkAdvisor.