为了提高基金管理人员报告的透明度，投资者可能已经注意到，SEC现在需要基金管理人员报告修订表格披露的更多信息。在制定这些修订的披露要求方面，秒的目标似乎在颁布时似乎很好。实际上，乍一看，来自基金经理的增强披露和透明度似乎是投资者的本质上积极发展。投资者在此快速反弹中并不孤单，围绕额外的报告要求。
但是，在对这些增强的ADV披露变得过于兴奋之前，我们鼓励投资者进行谨慎的剂量。当然，越来越多的调查越好，然而，即使是修订的adv披露中所含信息类型的中立类型的中立评估也表明，秒可能已经牺牲了所需披露的数量，以质量信息。
While, investors may find these additional disclosures can be very informative, the guise of enhanced transparency can actually foster a dangerous environment in which investors may become too comfortable with fund managers, and believe the government is keeping sufficient watch. This wolf in sheep’s clothing syndrome may result in investors mistaking transparency for due diligence, and can result in investors not performing sufficient operational due diligence or even worse ignoring it all together.
返回秒披露，值得考虑这类额外披露实际上是什么？例如，作为新的Adv披露基金经理现在正在披露有关他们服务提供商的关系的更多细节，包括主要经纪人和审计员。政府迫使基金经理透露这些信息似乎现在向投资者提出了对投资者的责任。所以这引出了问题 - 投资者在这种数据做什么？然而，此类问题预先推出，该投资者现在首次接收此信息。这显然是荒谬的。
投资者should be performing operational due diligence before investing with a fund manager be it a hedge fund, private equity fund or some other type of manager. The operational due diligence process includes a review of a fund’s service provider relationships. In conducting these service provider reviews it is certainly essential to know the identity of these providers. If a fund manager would not disclose this information in response to investor operational due diligence requests then an investor should run, not walk, away from the manager.
事实上，证券委员会未以前要求基金管理者将基金服务提供者的身份提交的身份，并以书面形式在书面上表达缺乏对监管机构缺乏透明度的流行趋势。但是，这不是所有的秒的错。政府的目标是对投资者在运营尽职调查过程中的目标互补。部分希望防止非法活动（包括欺诈）并保护投资者免受接触这项活动。
The goals of the investor during the operational due diligence process should not only be to avoid exposure to funds involved in illegal activity, such as fraud, but to evaluate the quality and appropriateness of a fund’s operations. A fund manager can be a perfectly honest person, but can still have internal operations which deviate from best practices. There are many areas which can lead to significant fund losses, and are typically covered during an investor operational due diligence review, which still remain unaddressed in the revised SEC ADV disclosures.
One example related to fund cash oversight. It is not illegal for a fund manager not to conduct a daily cash reconciliation - but it is certainly advisable. A manager who does not perform these daily cash reconciliations could have issues at month-end in reconciling cash statements and positions which may result in delays in producing NAVs. These delays could contribute to unhappy investors who redeem capital and put the fund out of business. This is the type of poor operations management that the government might not detect under the new regulations but whbich investors performing operational due diligence certainly should.
另一个例子涉及对冲基金估值实践。对冲基金一般是完全合法的，以维持唯一估值政策，该政策载于提供的资金备忘录。这些政策通常被律师出于含糊不清，足以提供资金经理估值的自由裁量权。当使用基金管理员时，通常只要他们签署估值，基金经理已遵守提供备忘录的条款。
但考虑基金交易相当数量的非数型职位的情况。根据“模糊提供备忘录政策，基金可以简单地标记它所看到的任何方式，并为管理员提供这些标记的备份文件。管理员可能或可能没有能力，甚至可能需要，独立地确认这些管理器标记。这种情况会提高担心基金经理可以操纵标志的责任。或者，诚实的基金经理可以根据摇摇欲浴的假设或模型投入简单地是不恰当的证券。在任何一种情况下，当最终标记失调的职位时，基金会和投资者损失存在显着潜力。IS披露披露的资金经理是披露这方面的任何细节所必需的基金经理。为了检测和避免这些类型的情况，投资者需要超越表格披露，并对这些运营细节进行深度潜水尽职调查。
Form ADV also completely ignores other key fund risk areas. An example of this is business continuity and disaster recovery (BCP/DR). This has become an increasingly important area for hedge funds in recent years, particularly high frequency traders. Aside from the threat of large scale events, such as terrorism or natural disasters, which could disrupt fund operations, there are a number of more mundane ways that fund operations can be disrupted or data can be lost. These can include regional storms that result in downed power lines and the failure of certain pieces of hardware, such as servers. Recognizing the importance of this area, hedge funds have continued to develop sophisticated BCP/DR plans that often include offsite hardware locations and alternative worksites. Disclosures about such plans are not required on Form ADV, yet there are often very real consequences for investors in funds that do not have appropriate BCP/DR plans. While there are other SEC provisions that address fund BCP/DR plans, even these do not get into much detail regarding the quality or appropriateness of such plans. Once again, it is up to investors to source this information themselves, rather than expecting the Form ADV to provide the necessary transparency.
总之，投资者不应误解加强基金披露的环境，并据说对适当的运营尽职调查增加监管监督。应增强关于表格申请的监管申请的透明度应该被视为运营尽职调查库中的工具，而不是一个拐杖，这将避免投资者需要自己运营尽职调查的拐杖。
Jason Scharfman is managing partner at Corgentum, a consulting firm which performs operational due diligence reviews of fund managers and works with investors including fund of funds, pensions, endowments, banks and family offices.