New Quarterly Reporting Formats for AIFs

As per Regulation 28 of SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, AIFs are required to submit quarterly reports to SEBI in the formats specified with respect to the activities carried on by the AIFs. The format for quarterly reporting was recently revamped by SEBI vide its circular dated September 14, 2023. The new format is much more elaborate than the old one with many more fields. The new reporting form, which has been put up on the IVCA’s website, is in an excel sheet with the following ten tabs:

• General Information on AIF
• General Information on Schemes
• Corpus details
• Information on Investments
• Information on Investors
• Investors Consent
• Borrowing
• Others
• Details of Complaints
• Category 3 AIFs
• Sector List

Under “General Information on AIF”, some of the information that is now being sought, which was not required earlier, are:

• PAN of the AIF;
• Pan, email address and address of the Sponsor, Manager and Trustee;
• Name of the AIF’s Custodian and RTA;
• Number of Schemes launched and wound up;
• Whether the manager is registered as Co-investment portfolio manager / Portfolio Manager under SEBI(PM) Regulations, 2020;
• Contact information of the Compliance Officer;
• Details of Key Managerial Personnel during the reporting period.

Under the 2^nd tab, “General Information on Schemes”, in addition to basic details relating to tenure of the scheme such as date of launch of scheme, date of initial close/final close, total commitment received as on initial close, the AIF is required to disclose whether an extension of the scheme term is permitted as per fund documents. If the scheme is beyond extended term, a number of details are required to be filled regarding such extension.

Tables 3, 4 and 5 in the second tab on “General Information on Schemes” would not be applicable to all schemes and these relate to:

• Table 3: Details of Liquidation Scheme
• Table 4: Details of In-specie Distribution (Requisite investor consent received)
• Table 5: Details of Mandatory In-specie distribution

Tables 3, 4 and 5 go into granular detail and some of the information sought are:

• Table 3 – Bid arranged for __% of unliquidated investments;
• Table 4 – Bid arranged for __% of unliquidated investments;
• Table 5- No. of investors that did not accept in-specie distribution;

Under the 3^rd tab, “Corpus Details” in addition to seeking information on cumulative funds raised, cumulative investments made at the end of the quarter and investible funds, information is also sought regarding:

• Temporary investments made by the scheme as at the end of quarter;
• Cash in hand as at the end of quarter;
• Cumulative Cost of Divestment made as at the end of quarter;
• Cumulative Principal/ Capital Distributions made to the investors as at the end of quarter.

The 4^th tab “Information on Investments” seeks an enormous amount of information on the type of investments made by the AIF and almost all of this is new. Names of investee companies, their PAN numbers, SEBI Registration Number of investee Company (If investee company is an AIF) etc. need to be provided. Even in the case of temporary investments, names of investee companies are required. Category I and II AIFs are required to provide information on all their investments (listed and unlisted securities) whereas Category III AIFs are required to provide information of investments in only unlisted securities. Where a scheme has invested in different types of securities of an investee company, information is to be provided separately in each row for each type of security.

Just as in the old format, the “sector” in which the investment has been made is required. However, the list of sectors attached to the reporting format is a lot more detailed with 113 entries, while the old one had just 34 entries.

The 5^th tab “Information on Investors” breaks up investors into several new categories (such as Banks, NBFCs, Pension Funds, Government Agencies) and seeks details relating to the number of investors in each category and value of their investment in each category.

The 6^th tab “Investors Consent” is entirely new and seeks details of consent received from investors as a % by value of investment during the reporting quarter. Statistics regarding the type of responses received, such as positive responses, negative responses and even no-reply, have to be provided. The first note to this tab clarifies that only those proposals which are either approved or rejected during the quarter are to be reported.

The 7^th tab “Borrowing” now seeks details of borrowings by Category I and Category II AIFs during the reporting quarter. Under the old format, only Category III AIFs were required disclose details of their borrowings. In the new format, tab no 10 is dedicated to borrowings by Category 3 AIFs. Table 2 in the 7^th tab “Borrowing” seeks details of pledges during the reporting quarter. Category I and Category II AIFs are being specifically asked “whether AIF pledged its investment in the investee company”.

The 8^th tab “Other” is a new miscellaneous tab and requires AIFs to provide the following additional details:

• Details of latest valuation of each scheme;
• Details of fees and expenses for investors on-boarded after May 01, 2023;
• Details of warehoused investments by the scheme;
• Reporting of Suspension of redemptions by Category III AIFs;
• Submission of PPM audit report;
• Details of non-compliances reported by Compliance Officer to SEBI during the quarter;
• Details w.r.t Compliance Test Report (CTR);

The 9^th tab “Details of Complaint” seeks information regarding complaints received by the scheme and arbitrations in which scheme is involved. Disclosure is sought not just on the number of complaints pending at the end of quarter but also on the number of complaints pending for more than 3 months as at the end of quarter.

We hope you have found this information useful. For any queries/clarifications please write to us at insights@elp-in.com or write to our authors:

Vinod Joseph, Partner – Email – vinodjoseph@elp-in.com
Paridhi Jain, Associate –  Email – paridhijain@elp-in.com