Title 17

SECTION 275.204-3

275.204-3 Delivery of brochures and brochure supplements.

§ 275.204-3 Delivery of brochures and brochure supplements.

(a) General requirements. If you are registered under the Act as an investment adviser, you must deliver a brochure and one or more brochure supplements to each client or prospective client that contains all information required by Part 2 of Form ADV [17 CFR 279.1].

(b) Delivery requirements. Subject to paragraph (g), you (or a supervised person acting on your behalf) must:

(1) Deliver to a client or prospective client your current brochure before or at the time you enter into an investment advisory contract with that client.

(2) Deliver to each client, annually within 120 days after the end of your fiscal year and without charge, if there are material changes in your brochure since your last annual updating amendment:

(i) A current brochure, or

(ii) The summary of material changes to the brochure as required by Item 2 of Form ADV, Part 2A that offers to provide your current brochure without charge, accompanied by the Web site address (if available) and an e-mail address (if available) and telephone number by which a client may obtain the current brochure from you, and the Web site address for obtaining information about you through the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) system.

(3) Deliver to each client or prospective client a current brochure supplement for a supervised person before or at the time that supervised person begins to provide advisory services to the client; provided, however, that if investment advice for a client is provided by a team comprised of more than five supervised persons, a current brochure supplement need only be delivered to that client for the five supervised persons with the most significant responsibility for the day-to-day advice provided to that client. For purposes of this section, a supervised person will provide advisory services to a client if that supervised person will:

(i) Formulate investment advice for the client and have direct client contact; or

(ii) Make discretionary investment decisions for the client, even if the supervised person will have no direct client contact.

(4) Deliver the following to each client promptly after you create an amended brochure or brochure supplement, as applicable, if the amendment adds disclosure of an event, or materially revises information already disclosed about an event, in response to Item 9 of Part 2A of Form ADV or Item 3 of Part 2B of Form ADV (Disciplinary Information), respectively, (i) the amended brochure or brochure supplement, as applicable, along with a statement describing the material facts relating to the change in disciplinary information, or (ii) a statement describing the material facts relating to the change in disciplinary information.

(i) That is an investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 [15 U.S.C. 80a-1 to 80a-64] or a business development company as defined in that Act, provided that the advisory contract with that client meets the requirements of section 15(c) of that Act [15 U.S.C. 80a-15(c)]; or

(ii) Who receives only impersonal investment advice for which you charge less than $500 per year.

(2) You are not required to deliver a brochure supplement to a client:

(i) To whom you are not required to deliver a brochure under subparagraph (c)(1) of this section;

(ii) Who receives only impersonal investment advice; or

(iii) Who is an officer, employee, or other person related to the adviser that would be a “qualified client” of your firm under § 275.205-3(d)(1)(iii).

(d) Wrap fee program brochures. (1) If you are a sponsor of a wrap fee program, then the brochure that paragraph (b) of this section requires you to deliver to a client or prospective client of the wrap fee program must be a wrap fee program brochure containing all the information required by Part 2A, Appendix 1 of Form ADV. Any additional information in a wrap fee program brochure must be limited to information applicable to wrap fee programs that you sponsor.

(2) You do not have to deliver a wrap fee program brochure if another sponsor of the wrap fee program delivers, to the client or prospective client of the wrap fee program, a wrap fee program brochure containing all the information required by Part 2A, Appendix 1 of Form ADV.

Note to paragraph (d):

A wrap fee program brochure does not take the place of any brochure supplements that you are required to deliver under paragraph (b) of this section.

(e) Multiple brochures. If you provide substantially different advisory services to different clients, you may provide them with different brochures, so long as each client receives all information about the services and fees that are applicable to that client. The brochure you deliver to a client may omit any information required by Part 2A of Form ADV if the information does not apply to the advisory services or fees that you will provide or charge, or that you propose to provide or charge, to that client.

(f) Other disclosure obligations. Delivering a brochure or brochure supplement in compliance with this section does not relieve you of any other disclosure obligations you have to your advisory clients or prospective clients under any federal or state laws or regulations.

(g) Definitions. For purposes of this section:

(1) Impersonal investment advice means investment advisory services that do not purport to meet the objectives or needs of specific individuals or accounts.

(2) Current brochure and current brochure supplement mean the most recent revision of the brochure or brochure supplement, including all amendments to date.

(3) Sponsor of a wrap fee program means an investment adviser that is compensated under a wrap fee program for sponsoring, organizing, or administering the program, or for selecting, or providing advice to clients regarding the selection of, other investment advisers in the program.

(4) Supervised person means any of your officers, partners or directors (or other persons occupying a similar status or performing similar functions) or employees, or any other person who provides investment advice on your behalf.

(5) Wrap fee program means an advisory program under which a specified fee or fees not based directly upon transactions in a client's account is charged for investment advisory services (which may include portfolio management or advice concerning the selection of other investment advisers) and the execution of client transactions.

[75 FR 49268, Aug. 12, 2010, as amended at 81 FR 60458, Oct. 31, 2016; 84 FR 33630, July 12, 2019]