Press Release

Foreside Completes Acquisition of BNY Mellon’s Fund Distribution Business
Opens New Office in Berwyn, Pennsylvania

April 18, 2012 (Portland, Maine) – Foreside and BNY Mellon announced today that they have successfully completed the sale of BNY Mellon’s fund distribution business (BNY Mellon Distributors and its four subsidiaries, including MGI Distributors, Fairholme Distributors, HighMark Distributors and Sterling Distributors) to Foreside Financial Group, LLC. The transaction closed on March 31, 2012.

Effective April 1, 2012, BNY Mellon Distributors was renamed Foreside Funds Distributors LLC. Foreside has opened a new office, located at: 400 Berwyn Park, 899 Cassatt Rd., Berwyn, PA 19312. BNY Mellon Distributors’ eleven employees joined Foreside and are servicing clients out of the Berwyn, PA office.

About Foreside

Foreside delivers a range of distribution and regulatory compliance services to clients in the investment management industry, including investment advisers of registered and unregistered pooled products. Foreside serves as sponsors of open-end, closed-end, exchange-traded and alternative investment products, including commodity pools, with regulatory compliance, Sarbanes-Oxley, registered representative, and active and statutory distribution services. Currently, Foreside distributes over $450 billion of product through our established broker-dealers, all FINRA member firms. Our solutions allow Foreside’s clients to focus on asset management without sacrificing distribution and compliance best practices. Foreside is headquartered in Portland, Maine and has offices in Boston, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Columbus, Ohio and Berwyn, Pennsylvania. If you have any questions or comments regarding the foregoing transition, please contact David Whitaker at (207) 553-7142. For more information on Foreside’s suite of services, please visit our website at www.foreside.com.

Foreside is pleased to announce that it will be a Platinum Sponsor at the TradePMR Synergy 2012 Conference, to be held at the Hilton Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL from May 9-11, 2012. If you are attending this conference, please stop by our booth to talk with our Active Distribution team.

Foreside is pleased to announce that it will be a Silver Sponsor at IndexUniverse’s 5th Annual Inside ETFs Conference, to be held at The Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, FL from January 22-24, 2012. If you are attending this conference, please stop by our booth to learn more about Foreside and our services.

Securities And Exchange Commission Charges Investment Advisers For Inadequate Compliance Programs

Under Rule 206(4)-7 of the Investment Advisers Act, which is known as the “Compliance Rule,” registered investment advisers are required to adopt and implement written policies and procedures that are reasonably designed to prevent, detect, and correct securities law violations. The Compliance Rule also requires annual review of the policies and procedures for their adequacy and the effectiveness of their implementation, and designation of a chief compliance officer to be responsible for administering the policies and procedures.

Three recent cases stem from an initiative within the SEC Enforcement Division’s Asset Management Unit to proactively work with agency examiners to ensure viable compliance programs are in place at firms. When SEC examiners identify deficiencies in a firm’s compliance program, those deficiencies need to be corrected before they lead to other securities law violations that could harm investors.

The firms will pay financial penalties and institute a series of corrective measures to settle the SEC’s charges.

For more information regarding these three cases, please visit the SEC website.

Foreside is pleased to announce that it will be a sponsor at the AM&AA 2012 Winter Conference, to be held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV from January 17-19, 2012.

On Wednesday, January 4, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a risk alert on the evolving topic of social media use by registered investment advisers. Key takeaways from this seven-page alert include the following:

Investment advisers that use or permit the use of social media by their representatives, solicitors and/or third parties should consider periodically evaluating the effectiveness of their compliance program as it relates to social media. Factors that might be considered include usage guidelines, content standards, sufficient monitoring, approval of content, training, etc. Particular attention should be paid to third party content (if permitted) and recordkeeping responsibilities.

Click here to read the full text of the SEC alert.

For more regarding the SEC and social media, see this article on a recent SEC enforcement action against an investment adviser accused of using social media sites, including LinkedIn, to defraud investors.

To learn more about Foreside’s Compliance Services, including social media-related compliance assistance, visit the Compliance Services section of our website.

Foreside is pleased to announce that Susan Mosher, Head of Compliance Services, will present at a panel discussion hosted by the CFA Society of Philadelphia, to be held on October 19, 2011 at The Philadelphia Racquet Club. She will discuss “Dodd-Frank One Year Later: Recent Regulatory Developments for Investment Advisers,” alongside co-presenters Alan R. Gedrich, Esq., Partner, Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, LLP, and Brian Carroll, Esq., Senior Special Counsel Securities and Exchange Commission.

Click here for more information about this event.

Foreside is pleased to announce that it will be a sponsor at HedgeWorld’s 2011 Fund Services Conference & Expo, to be held at The Metropolitan Club in New York City on October 26, 2011.

In an open meeting on June 22, 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) confirmed earlier statements it had made by officially extending the registration deadline for advisers that are no longer exempt from SEC registration to March 30, 2012. It also adopted a rule defining family offices and further defined the exemption for advisers to venture capital funds.

The SEC has released the text of the final rules, which you can find here.