Waiting for the SEC to Jumpstart U.S. Business? Instead, Why Not Jumpstart Your Own Business?In April 2012, the U.S. Congress passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (“JOBS Act”), a law that would ease restrictions on marketing private funds to U.S. investors. It came with high hopes that U.S. regulatory requirements would soon be simplified in this area. Now those efforts may be stalled for the time being. This does not mean that your efforts to market into the U.S. should also be stalled.http://www.ftseglobalmarkets.com/
In April 2012, the U.S. Congress passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (“JOBS Act”), a law that would ease restrictions on marketing private funds to U.S. investors. It came with high hopes that U.S. regulatory requirements would soon be simplified in this area. Now those efforts may be stalled for the time being. This does not mean that your efforts to market into the U.S. should also be stalled.
By way of background, in the U.S. most private funds are offered to investors in reliance on an exemption from registration with the SEC that prohibits “general solicitations or general advertising.” The JOBS Act instructed the SEC to adopt rules eliminating the prohibition by the beginning of July. The SEC missed that deadline. More recently, the SEC scheduled a meeting for August 22 to consider the rules, but at the last minute the discussion was postponed until next Wednesday, August 29. In a subtle, but potentially impactful change to the meeting agenda, next week’s meeting will consider “whether to propose” (emphasis supplied) rules to eliminate the prohibition, as opposed to actually considering the rules themselves.
For the time being, the prohibition on general solicitations and general advertising remains.
However, according to a recent Citibank study, U.S. investors are the most active day one/early stage allocators and their allocation are over 50% larger than those from other regions. When entering into the U.S. market, non-U.S. advisers may have an advantage over U.S. emerging managers since many already have established track records.
Instead of waiting for the SEC to jumpstart U.S. businesses, why not jumpstart your own? U.S. advisers have successfully navigated the U.S. environment for years; you can too.
Deborah Prutzman is the founder and CEO of The Regulatory Fundamentals Group (RFG), a New York-based firm that designs and implements business and risk solutions for alternative asset managers and institutional investors. RFG's senior-led team employs a robust suite of tools, including practical alerts on new and potential industry developments and its powerful RFG Pathfinder® knowledge management platform which simplifies the challenges of operating in a regulated environment. To learn more about The Regulatory Fundamentals Group call (212) 537-4058, email a representative at Information@RegFG.com or visit RegFG.com
Latest from Deborah Prutzman
