Statement Summary
The Commission and the CFTC have proposed amendments to simplify and reduce the filing and reporting obligations of Form PF, responding to long-standing concerns about its complexity and utility. The aim is to refocus Form PF on its core objective: providing data that helps the Financial Stability Oversight Council monitor systemic risks in the U.S. financial system. The current form is criticized for generating excessive data that does not contribute meaningfully to understanding private fund activities. The proposed amendments are designed to align Form PF more closely with its original purpose, inviting feedback from stakeholders on both the proposed changes and existing elements that may need further adjustments.
Original Statement
Today, the Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) (collectively, “Commissions”) proposed amendments to eliminate certain Form PF filing and reporting obligations and to streamline others. My thanks to the hardworking staff in the Division of Investment Management, Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, and Office of the General Counsel and to the CFTC for their work on this proposal. I support this proposal and hope to receive robust feedback from investors, investment advisers, private funds, and other interested parties.
I have been hearing calls to fix Form PF since I started as a commissioner. Form PF generates a lot of data at great expense that does not present a useful window into private fund activity. To date, the Commissions’ response to these pleas has been to make the form more—rather than less—onerous. The granular data required by the 2024 amendments, for example, made an already problematic form worse, as commenters warned would happen.
The fundamental problem with Form PF is that it has wandered from its core purpose: generating information to assist FSOC in identifying and monitoring risks to the financial stability of the United States.
Many of today’s proposed amendments acknowledge and address the concerns we have heard. If adopted, these amendments should help to restore Form PF to its intended purpose. I urge commenters to look closely at both the proposed changes and what is not changing so that you can tell us whether additional or alternative changes would better restore the form to its intended role. I would welcome feedback on, among other questions, the following:
Now is the time to tell the Commissions what we got right and where we have gone astray.
Comment Letter of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Oct. 11, 2022) at 4 (“The amendments under consideration represent a significant rewrite of Form PF and would require funds to provide extensive new streams of data unrelated to systemic risk.”)
Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 was amended to require that an adviser must maintain records and reports for each private fund it advises, that include a description of the following:
- (1) the amount of assets under management and use of leverage, including off-balance-sheet leverage;
- (2) counterparty credit risk exposure;
- (3) trading and investment positions;
- (4) valuation policies and practices of the fund;
- (5) types of assets held;
- (6) side arrangements or side letters, whereby certain investors in a fund obtain more favorable rights or entitlements than other investors;
- (7) trading practices.
The statute also allows the Commissions to require the disclosure of other information, including for investor protection purposes, but the statute’s primary objective is to inform the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which—as its name suggests—has a systemic risk monitoring and mitigation mandate.
Form PF; Reporting Requirements for All Filers, Investment Advisers Act Release No. 6959 (Apr. 20, 2026) at 15, at 22.
