©2006 Investment Company Institute. All rights reserved. Information may be abridged and therefore incomplete.
Communications from the Institute do not constitute, and should not be considered a substitute for, legal advice.
[19737]
February 13, 2006
TO: INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS ADVISORY COMMITTEE No. 5-06
RE: 2005 OFFSHORE FUND CHARACTERISTICS SURVEY
A task force of the International Operations Advisory Committee (“IOAC”), led by Marc
Scher of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, updated the Offshore Fund Characteristics (“OFC”)
survey that was first conducted by the IOAC in 2002. The updated survey will gather information on
the types of investment fund products (non-SEC registered funds domiciled outside the U.S.)
distributed cross-border by IOAC members as of December 31, 2005. Additionally, the task force
developed a new survey to collect data on the sale of SEC registered mutual funds to non-U.S. investors.
These surveys are available now for completion on ICI’s website. The Offshore Fund
Characteristics survey can be accessed at http://members.ici.org/survey/offshore.jsp and the Sale of
SEC Registered Mutual Funds Offshore survey can be accessed at
http://members.ici.org/survey/usfundsoffshore.jsp. Please submit your completed web surveys to
the Institute no later than March 17, 2006.
If you have any questions regarding the surveys, please direct your inquiries to the following
Institute staff:
• Technical issues regarding the web surveys or access to the ICI website – Jed Alexander at
jalexander@ici.org or 202/326-5933
• Survey content issues – Diane Butler at butler@ici.org or 202/326-5850.
Data collected from each individual firm will remain strictly confidential and only aggregate
survey results will be shared. The Investment Company Institute prepared these surveys for
informational purposes only. Institute members should act independently in making any decisions
based on these survey results.
We strongly encourage all International Operations Advisory Committee members to
complete these surveys so that we will have meaningful, useful data to provide to you. The
2
aggregate survey results will be shared with the Committee, along with a comparison of the aggregated
results of the 2005 and 2001 OFC surveys.
Thank you for your assistance with this important project!
Diane M. Butler
Director – Transfer Agency
& International Operations