To GIPS or not to GIPS in your presentations

Must every presentation you give include the seemingly endless GIPS disclosures if your investment management firm claims GIPS compliance? For answers, I turned to Dave Spaulding,  president of The Spaulding Group and author of the Investment Performance Guy blog.

The short answer is “It depends.” When you hand someone a document containing performance data, you should either include the relevant GIPS disclosures or make sure that you’ve provided the disclosures during the past 12 months. There’s no exception to this rule. 

However, you’ve got more leeway when you make a live, in-person presentation to prospects or clients. You can’t mislead your audience. But you don’t need to include all of your GIPS data and disclosures in your live presentation. The keys are to
•    Provide enough information that your viewers understand what they’re seeing
•    Label as “supplementary” any performance information that is neither required  nor recommended
•    Hand your audience members a hard copy of your GIPS presentation

If you follow these rules, your presentations can focus on what you and your audience care most about. By the way, Dave’s presentation to the Boston Security Analysts Society on fixed income attribution was one of the top-drawing posts on my blog in 2009, so I thank him for helping to grow my audience.

Related posts
•   What does GIPS verification mean?
•   A quant’s guide to detecting a future Madoff
•   Top five tips for investment performance advertising
•  SEC update to CFA Institute’s GIPS conference
 
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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
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Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved