In my last PrefLetter update I indicated:
The other legal issue is where I can sell it. I know I can offer this product for sale to Ontario residents – my existing registrations (corporate and personal) with the OSC allow me to do that. I’m not licensed in other provinces, however, so I’ve asked counsel to determine how to get the newsletter class of registration in other provinces. If it’s easy and doesn’t cost too much, I’ll do it as a speculation. Otherwise, I’ll have to get a better idea of the demand for the product before doing this.
Counsel advises that getting newsletter-eligible registration status has the same cost and headache quotient as getting Investment Counsellor / Portfolio Manager (ICPM) status. So I’m not going to do it! It seems that I can offer my fund nationally, but not my newsletter. Anybody who thinks this is ridiculous red tape and “Gotcha Regulation” is welcome to contact their local regulator and say so.
As always, I will be very happy to apply for registration in any province as soon as I have some kind of reasonable expectation of breaking even on the venture … just covering my regulatory & legal fees will be enough to start with! So I’ll be accepting expressions of interest from those Canadians not fortunate enough to live in Ontario, in the hopes of accumulating enough requests to make the headaches worthwhile.