SEC Issues Staff Report On Accredited Investor Definition
On December 15, 2023, the SEC issued a staff report on the accredited investor definition. The report comes three years after the most recent amendments to the accredited investor definition (see HERE).
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”) requires the SEC to review the accredited investor definition, as relates to natural persons, at least once every four years to determine whether the definition should be modified or adjusted. The last two reports can be read HERE and HERE.
The current report focuses on the composition of the accredited investor demographic, including since the last definition amendments; the extent to which accredited investors have the financial sophistication, ability to sustain the risk of loss of investment, and access to information that have traditionally been associated with an ability to fend for themselves; and accredited investor participation in exempt offerings.
I’ve included the complete current accredited investor definition at the end of this blog.
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SEC Study On Unregistered Offerings
In October 2015, the SEC Division of Economic and Risk Analysis issued a white paper study on unregistered securities offerings from 2009 through 2014 (the “Report”). The Report provides insight into what is working in the private placement market and has been on my radar as a blog since its release, but with so many pressing, timely topics to write about, I am only now getting to this one. The SEC Report is only through 2014; however, at the end of this blog, I have provided supplemental information from another source related to PIPE (private placements into public equity) transactions in 2015.
Private offerings are the largest segment of capital formation in the U.S. markets. In 2014 private offerings raised more than $2 trillion. The SEC study used information collected from Form D filings to provide insight into the offering characteristics, including types of issuers, investors and financial intermediaries that participate in offerings. The Report focuses on Regulation D offerings
