Qualified institutional buyer

Qualified institutional investors (English qualified institutional buyer, QIB ) include as a special group of institutional investors to the financial investors who are exempt from certain regulatory requirements due to their market size and / or qualifications.

Background

To protect investors, many lawmakers around the world have enacted regulations governing the handling of various types of investors. These include in particular an obligation to disclose certain minimum information disclosure requirements of public companies, management and intermediary financial institutions and consultants.

Legal regulation in the U.S.

In the U.S. QIB be determined by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission because of the "Rule 144A " of the U.S. Exchange Act.

The qualified institutional investors therefore essentially apply:

• All legal entities that have $ a securities account of at least $ 100 million or such manage ( with banks is still an audited net worth of U.S. $ 25 million according to the last annual financial statements required)
• SEC registered exchange traders who manage their own account or for the account of other QIBs a security deposit of at least $ 10 million, as well as
• Persons who act in the interests of a QIB as part of a purchase of the client for which a simultaneous compensation sale is to another QIB.

In the respective limits of not taking into account the shares of a subsidiary of an investor, the unsold units or shares of a public offering in whom the Exchange Trader with signatories.

Responsible for ensuring the fulfillment of the required minimum criteria, the counterparty to the investor, so for example, the seller of securities. As well currently are in the process to display values ​​that originate from a balance sheet not older than 16 months. For balances that are older than six months, the profit and loss account ( which must not be older than six months) in the assessment, as well as a max. 12 months old company report or - for foreign issuers - the necessary information by national law.

Other countries

In India and China there are also national regulations regarding " qualified institutional investors ".

In France 2004, legislation was adopted to qualified institutional investors in November. These stipulate that usually only QIBs, which are essentially very technically qualified, and wealthy private clients who are not as vulnerable as retail investors due to the accumulation of its assets, may invest in hedge funds.