What do Wyoming, New York, and Minnesota Have in Common?

Wyoming has long been on this list because it does not have a law regulating investment advisers. In Item 2 of Form ADV there was a box to check if your principal office and place of business was Wyoming. That kept you in SEC registration.

The importance of whether a state does exams affects mid-sized advisors. Dodd-Frank allows mid-sized advisors to stay with SEC registration instead of state registration if their home state doesn’t do exams.

At last week’s SEC Open Meeting on the new investment adviser act rules, Bob Plaze, associate director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management, revealed that New York did not respond in writing to the SEC’s question about investment adviser examinations. The SEC took the position that a non-response was a statement that the state doesn’t examine investment advisers.

Minnesota responded that they don’t conduct exams.

This means mid-sized advisers in Wyoming, New York, and Minnesota won’t have to switch to state supervision if they have between $25 million and $100 million in assets under management.