Category: Fundraising

Ensuring compliance in your marketing and solicitation procedures

PEI PFC Forum 2013

These are my notes from the Private Fund Compliance Forum 2013.

Paula Bosco, Managing Director, Chief Regulatory Counsel & CCO, New Mountain Capital, LLC
Abrielle Rosenthal, Senior Principal & Senior Compliance Counsel, TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P.

The JOBS Act is going to change things. We just don’t know when or how. However, most people think it will just reduce risks associated with speaking at conferences and speaking to the press.  A poll of the audience showed only 6% would advertise widely, 34% would advertise in small institutional circles, and 60% would not change their marketing practices.

You want to make sure you define terms like Gross IRR and return on equity.  Of course, all gross numbers must be accompanied by net numbers.

You want your footnotes to be at least 8pt, otherwise its unreadable.

You want every statement in the materials to have a source and to be backed by data. You especially need to have the supporting data for past performance numbers.

You can treat communications to current investors communicating current fund performance as not being marketing materials. The danger is that the materials get delivered to a prospective investor as part of the marketing pitch.

Be sure to be consistent across the Form ADV and responses to DDQs and other marketing materials.

The session turned to the big, ugly, hairy gorilla known as AIFMD. If you are not actively marketing in Europe and don’t have any Europe fund operations then you probably don’t have to worry about AIFMD.

However, there are three areas that may still trigger AIFMD: co-investments, secondary transfers, and equity structures.

If you are allowing co-investments from European investors that could trigger AIFMD. If an investor sells an interest to a European investor it may trigger AIFMD.

Local laws on lobbying and pay-to-play can be time consuming.

Remember that the anti-fraud rules apply to all communications, not just marketing. You can never be misleading.

Fund Investing and Crowdfunding

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As the Securities and Exchange Commission has been dragging its feet on new crowdfunding regulations, companies are finding a way to crowdfund using the current rules. The biggest challenge is dealing with the broker-dealer registration requirements. If you sell securities on a transaction basis, you are likelya broker-dealer and need to deal with the registration requirements.  The other limitation is dealing with the current ban on general solicitation and advertising.

One company that appears to be successfully employing a crowdfunding  strategy is Solar Mosaic. The company is selling interests directly in its own projects so it avoids the broker-dealer requirements. It uses a Rule 504 exemption instead of Rule 506 exemption under Regulation D. Rule 504 exempt offerings are not subject to the ban on advertising that impedes Rule 506 offerings, but are subject to a $1 million limit on capital raised. I even invested a small amount of cash in a Solar Mosaic project.

I have seen a few other platforms, like Circle Up, that partner with a broker-dealer. Effectively, the web crowdfunding platform sits on top of the broker-dealer’s regulatory platform.

The latest crowdfunding approach to catch my eye is FundersClub. They even obtained a no-action letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission blessing their approach. (I should disclose that Mrs. Doug works at the law firm that requested the no-action letter.)

FundersClub acts as a venture capital fund manager and registered as a venture capital fund manager with California. It starts a separate private fund for each company that it funds.

The compensation it tricky. According to the SEC no-action letter and the FundersClub FAQ, the company charges an administrative fee to cover out of pocket costs. None of that fee goes to salaries or personnel. That lack of transaction compensation and operations was enough to keep the company away from broker-dealer registration.

FundersClub does take a promote on the performance of the investment fund. It has a long road ahead for compensation to come in, but is aligned with the investors.

I decided to try out the platform. Signing up is straightforward.

As for vetting users as accredited investors, the platform does a better job than others. It asks for your income, joint income and net worth. Other platforms just have a check button exactly tied to the right answers for those questions. With FundersClub, you need to know your income or know the right answers to be accredited.

It does have one simple check for knowledge:

By checking this box, you represent that you have such knowledge and experience in financial and business matters that you are capable of evaluating the merits and risks of investment opportunities in private companies generally, and you are able to bear the economic risk of such investments including the risk of complete loss.

After passing the entrance hurdle, there are several investment opportunities in the works.

The current regulatory environment for crowdfunding is tricky, but navigable for accredited investors. Non-accredited investors are left out, so maybe crowdfunding is not the right term. I’m skeptical that the JOBS Act mandate for new crowdfunding regulations is going to truly open the floodgates to non-accredited investors.

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UPDATED: To clean up more than my usual collection of typos.

File Your Fund’s PPM With FINRA?

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FINRA Rule 5123 requires each FINRA member firm that sells securities in a private placement, subject to certain exemptions, to file with FINRA a copy of any private placement memorandum, term sheet or other offering document the firm used within 15 calendar days of the date of the sale, or indicate that it did not use any such offering documents. If you are using a placement agent to help with fundraising, the placement agent will be subject to the FINRA rules. Then the fundraising is potential subject to the FINRA disclosure, unless if falls into an exemption. The exemptions for a private fund split the world into two.

For funds exempt under Section 3(c)(7) of the Investment Company Act, all of the buyers will be “qualified purchasers.” Rule 5123 has an exemption for the filing requirement for offerings sold to qualified purchasers.[5123(b)(1)(B)]

For funds using the Section 3(c)(1) exemption, the analysis in not as clean. Rule 5123 has an exemption for the filing requirement for offerings sold to some types of accredited investors. [5123(b)(1)(J)] It leaves out items 6 and 7 in the definition of accredited investor.

A fundraising triggers the filing requirement if you sell to natural persons who are accredited investors, but don’t meet the standard of qualified purchaser.

In talking with a placement agent, they are including representations that the offering will be a 3(c)(7) offering so that they are protected from having to make the FINRA filing.

How to Do Everything Wrong in a Securities Offering

first choice investment

I first looked at the First Choice Investments action by the Securities and Exchange Commission because it involved a real estate investment company. I thought it would be another to case to help me explore ““. Instead I found a train wreck, at least if what the SEC alleges is true. The company was selling high-yield notes that could be converted to shares in the company. This was a real estate based investment, but the company was not selling real estate interests. There is no argument that the company was selling securities.

In the SEC complaint, First Choice is accused of misusing funds and misleading advertising. The misuse of funds comes across as standard corporate fraud, raising cash for one purpose but pocketing it for your own compensation and outside uses.

The advertising and promotion was blatantly in violation of securities laws and shows some of the concerns of crowdfunding and removing the ban on general advertising.

Right on the public webpage, First Choice offers a 10% return paid quarterly and touts that First — Choice is about to go public shortly. With the ban on general advertising, there is a big red flag on this company’s web page.  First Choice is advertising the securities offering. Also, according to the SEC complaint, First Choice was cold calling potential investors. So they are violating both the general advertising and general solicitation restrictions currently in place for Regulation D Rule 506 offerings.

Also targeted in the complaint is an affiliated company, Acorp Development. It was offering $5 million of equity. It decided to put the SEC logo on its investor’s lounge with a link to its Form D filing. You should not use the SEC logo in a way that indicates something is approved by the SEC.

The Investor Presentation is a strange mix of concepts, questionable math, and false promises. After a handful of case studies, the presentation shows the pro forma returns for an investment, showing a target cap rate of 13.41%. All of the preceding case studies had lower cap rates.

The First Choice “Investor Principal Protection” caught my as incredibly strange. Somehow through a consulting agreement, Goldberg-Goldberg offers an “Investment Enhancement Program” that provides an “assured return of investment during the high risk stage of the business.” I scratch my head wondering how a consulting agreement is supposed to offer investor principal protection.

The First Choice notes state that they can be converted to equity. But with no formula for conversion, the windfall touted by First Choice would seem to be non-existent.

In a world where non-accredited investors should be shielded from private offerings, the First Choice materials are full of red flags that should make any reasonably savvy investor walk away. However, First Choice was still able to raise $3 million. The public availability of information is a red flag to regulators that the company is operating outside the bounds of the securities laws.

Post-repeal of the advertising ban and the post-enactment of equity crowdfunding, this types of fraudulent offering may be more common and more public. Hopefully, the SEC can find the right balance to limit the ability of bad actors that play in the securities offering playground.

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Make Sure Your Placement Agent is Registered

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The Securities and Exchange Commission cracked down on a fund manager and its placement agent because the placement agent was not registered as a broker-dealer. The federal securities laws require that an individual who solicits investments in return for transaction-based compensation be registered as a broker. There is a fine line between a “finder” and “placement agent.” A line that most fund managers would be best served to stay away from.

An SEC investigation found that William M. Stephens of Hinsdale, Ill., solicited investors as a hired consultant for Ranieri Partners. He was paid fees by the firm, but never registered as a broker. Stephens’ longtime friend Donald W. Phillips, a senior managing director who headed up capital raising efforts for Ranieri Partners, was responsible for overseeing Stephens’ activities. His role supposed to be acting as a “finder” who would merely make initial introductions to potential investors.

Since Stephens was paid a commission on his successful introductions, it looks like he stepped far over the line into the activities of a broker-dealer. He was not supposed to deliver documents or discuss the merits of the fund investment. But he did.

The simple remediation was to only use third party finder, marketing agent, or placement agent that is registered as a broker-dealer. Stephens had to pay a disgorgement of pay disgorgement of $2,418,379.20, the money he earned while acting as unlicensed broker-dealer. Ranieri, the fund manager, was ordered to pay a $375,000 penalty. Stephen’s supervisor was subject to a $75,00 fine and a suspension.

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Seaman Theodore Marion of Philadelphia, PA, uses a bullhorn to instruct a line-handling party in the hangar bay aboard USS Enterprise By U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Jason W. Pfiester [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Looking to Europe

EU-flag

A new regulatory regime is scheduled to impact fundraising in Europe starting this summer. The new regulatory structure known as the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFM) has a July 22 effective regulatory date. The effect will be felt if you are a EU-based fund manager or want to market to EU-based investors.

For U.S.-based managers falling under the AIFM there will be three main requirements:

  1. Disclosure to investors before they decide to invest
  2. Annual report to investors.
  3. Disclosure with regulators.

Even with the approaching deadline, there is still a lot of uncertainty. With EU Directives, it’s up to each member state to decide how to implement it. The UK has announced it will require a fund to register and the Financial Services Authority will have some oversight and will require Form PF-like data. Germany will likely implement a much stricter approach.

The main documents involved are the 2011/61 Directive (.pdf) and the Delegated Regulation (.pdf) that provides additional coverage of some aspects of the Directive. The third is the final report of Guidelines on sound remuneration policies under the AIFMD (.pdf).

If you have EU investors in your U.S.-domiciled fund but you don’t intend to market it anymore in Europe, you probably don’t have to worry about the AIFM directive. However, if you do intend to solicit European investors, you’re probably looking at a July 2014 compliance deadline.

There are some minimal thresholds. For hedge funds, an adviser must manage at least 100 million Euros in assets and for private equity funds the adviser must top a 500 million Euros threshold to fall under the directive. However, member states may reduce these thresholds even lower.

If you have European investors in your US fund or have European operation, the AIFM will start taking up a bunch of your time in the next few months.

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What Happens If You Violate the Ban on General Advertising and Solicitation?

compliance and advertising

I’m not planning to run late night ads for a latest security offering. But what could the Securities and Exchange Commission do about it? Keith Bishop asks: Can the SEC really create illegal actions by its own failures to comply with the law?

Last year’s JOBS Act contained an explicit mandate with an explicit time frame.

 Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission shall revise its rules issued in section 230.506 of title 17, Code of Federal Regulations, to provide that the prohibition against general solicitation or general advertising contained in section 230.502(c) of such title shall not apply to offers and sales of securities made pursuant to section 230.506, provided that all purchasers of the securities are accredited investors.

However, 90 days was never a feasible deadline to draft a rule, make it available for comment, respond to the comments, and publish a final rule. Congress could have made the change a statutory one, leaving the SEC rule explicitly out-of-date. But instead they mandated a regulatory change.

The first question is what would the SEC do to a violator? The SEC has published a JOBS Act page full of Frequently Asked Questions. Under Title III for crowdfunding the SEC published a statement warning would be entrepreneurs that securities crowdfunding is not legal until the regulations are finalized. The FAQ for Title II turns to the Broker-Dealer exemption for advertising. I don’t take the lack of a warning to mean that the SEC won’t prosecute. But given limited resources, you would have to wonder why the SEC would bother.

Assuming the SEC did prosecute, what would the courts do? …

I think I’ve gone on long enough. At this point, your offering is tied up in expensive legal roadblocks and your burning through cash to pay your lawyers. Whatever advantage you thought you might gain from advertising is gone.

Some brave soul may step up and be willing to test the advertising waters out of principle. But it would be a test rooted in sensible economic analysis.

Crowdfunding and the Ban on General Solicitation

18 Rabbits Bars

While entrepreneurs are looking to create crowdfunding portals under Title III of the JOBS Act, small business owners looking to raise capital should keep an eye on the regulatory changes under Title II of the JOBS Act. That may do a better job of opening the spigot for capital than the avalanche of crowdfunding portals likely to appear.

Look at the case of Alison Bailey Vercruysse, a maker of granola-based foods, and her company 18 Rabbits. According to a story in yesterday’s Washington Post, her products attracted a loyal following, but she could not tap those fans for capital as she tried to grow her firm.

“People would come up to me in different places and say: ‘I’m interested in investing in your company. How can I do that?’ ” Vercruysse said. “I couldn’t say we were trying to raise money. I’d end up saying things like; ‘Buy our granola. That would help us.’ ”

Without the ban on general solicitation, the company could put a message on its packaging or its website for accredited investors interested in investing.

Currently, the Securities and Exchange Commission has a ban on the use of general advertising and solicitation for raising private capital under the most popular exemption, Rule 506. Title II of the JOBS Act requires the SEC to remove that ban for offering where all investors are accredited. The agency tried to rush the rules last summer to meet the Congressional deadline, but investor advocates demanded that the SEC slow down. The SEC is gathering public comment before finalizing the rule.

Two SEC commissioners, Dan Gallagher and Troy Paredes, were in favor of immediately lifting the ban. SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar did not like the rule, saying it lacked adequate investor protections. The fourth SEC Commissioner, Elise Walter voted for the proposal, but expressed concerns. She has stated the SEC must consider ways to mitigate potential harm to investors. The fifth and presumably deciding Commissioner’s seat is vacant with the departure of Mary Shapiro. Looking into my crystal ball, it would seem that the rule is not going to be finalized anytime soon. At least not until the vacancy is filled.

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Crowdfunded Companies Won’t Be Here Anytime Soon

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When the JOBS Act passed last spring, there was a huge surge on the future of crowdfunding. In pursuit of the riches of startup investing, many ignored the already successful world of Kickstarter, Indie Go Go, and others that already successfully fund projects. Those platforms don’t show the investor a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They show the investor the final project and maybe the chance to purchase one or participate.

By switching to equity fundraising, the focus would switch to the potential financial reward and perhaps less on the value of the project. Critics wailed about the onslaught of fraud. Proponents praised the unleashing of entrepreneurial capital. The lawyers and regulators worried about how to implement this new capital raising regime.

Congress didn’t make it easy. They chose do throw out the original crowdfunding law proposed for the JOBS Act and replaced it with a very cumbersome and difficult new piece of legislation. They gave the Securities and Exchange Commission 270 days to come out with the regulations. That’s on top of the huge pile of regulatory mandates passed 2 years ago with Dodd-Frank.

We have seen no inkling that the SEC has come close to proposed regulations. With the departure of Mary Shapiro, the SEC is down to four commissioners. Two of whom have publicly voiced their concerns about crowdfunding. Even if the SEC can gather three out of four of the commissioners to agree on proposed regulations, there will be a lengthy comment period and likely re-writing to get to the final regulations.

In addition to the SEC, FINRA will need to create a regulatory regime for the registration of crowdfunding portals. To get a taste of how difficult this going to be, you can take a look at the first baby steps of regulatory work that came from FINRA.

FINRA is inviting prospective crowdfunding portals to voluntarily file an interim funding portal form. The filing is meant to help FINRA develop rules that reflect the funding portal community and its business. It is not an application and does not get anyone any closer to having a working equity crowdfunding platform.

For a taste of the difficulties take a look at the last question:

Please describe how the [Funding Portal] addresses the requirements for funding portals under the JOBS Act. In particular, please describe how the [Funding Portal] would
(i) address investor education;
(ii) take measures to reduce the risk of fraud with respect to funding portal transactions;
(iii) ensure adherence to the aggregate selling limits; and
(iv) protect the privacy of information collected from investors.

The successful crowfunding portals are going to have to master difficult regulations, successfully court attractive investment opportunities, master the 50 states of privacy legislation, come up with effective investor eduction tools, and successfully attract investors willing to write checks.

I still think crowdfunding will end up being a minor league system for the investment banks. They have the resources to conquer these hurdles. They can use the database of investors to mine for more conventional investment opportunities. They can use the few successful crowdfunded companies to sell bigger opportunities for raising more capital. It seems to me that we are still many, many months away from seeing the first crowdfunding portal under the JOBS Act.

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Private Placement of Fund Interests and Rule 5123 Filings

Under the new FINRA rule 5123, FINRA member firms that sell securities in certain private placements to submit a notice filing with FINRA.  That means your placement will likely have to file a fund’s private placement memorandum with FINRA. FINRA recently released FAQs and a user guide related to Rule 5123 filings. The notice filing must include a copy of any private placement memorandum, term sheet or other offering document, including any materially amended versions thereof, used in connection with such sale.

Submissions must be made within 15 calendar days of the first sale.

The FAQs answer practical questions regarding filing requirements, such as:

  • how members file a notice with FINRA
  • when does the 15-day period commence for filing with FINRA
  • What exemptions are there to form Rule 5123

Exemptions

1. Are private placements sold to institutional accounts exempt from the filing requirements of Rule 5123?

Private placements sold solely to institutional accounts (as defined in Rule 4512(c)) are exempt from the filing requirements of the rule (see Rule 5123(b)(1)(A)).

2. Are private placements sold to accredited investors exempt from the filing requirements of Rule 5123?

No, unless the sales are solely to entities that satisfy the definition of accredited investor under Rule 501(b)(1), (2), (3), or (7). Sales to accredited investors that are natural persons are not exempt from the filing requirements of the rule (see Rule 5123(b)(1)(J)).

If your fund uses a placement agent and is marketing to high-net worth individuals, it looks like the marketing materials will end up being filed with FINRA.