July 23, 2009
To Whom It May Concern,
I support any and all appropriate efforts to protect investors including the changes envisioned by Release IA-2876 for those Registered Investment Advisors maintaining custody. However, many fiduciary RIA firms that use independent custodians only take custody with respect to deducting fees from clients who choose to pay their fees that way. Typically, those firms also send their clients a "paid" statement that reflects the client's quarterly fee and the calculation thereof.
As an alternative to IA-2876, I recommend the SEC exempt the firms that practice consistent with the methods described above since those methods effectively eliminate the kinds of fraud referenced in Investment Advisers, Release No. IA-2876. Imposing any additional requirements on the thousands of firms that operate in this manner is overly burdensome and substantially and unnecessarily increases costs in areas that do not need further investor protection.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Investment Advisers, Release No. IA-2876.
Regards,
Jerry Yeager, JD