The Ontario Securities Commission granted Hamilton Lane (Canada) LLC, the manager of certain mutual funds that are not reporting issuers, a 90-day extension for filing and delivering their annual financial statements. This decision was made under National Instrument 81-106 Investment Fund Continuous Disclosure (NI 81-106), specifically sections 2.2, 5.1(2)(a), and 17.1.
The mutual funds in question, referred to as Top Funds, invest significantly in underlying funds located in various international jurisdictions. These underlying funds have financial reporting deadlines that require their statements to be filed within 120 days of their year-end, which is later than the standard 90-day deadline for the Top Funds.
Due to this timing discrepancy, the Top Funds are unable to obtain the necessary financial statements from the underlying funds in time to meet their own filing and delivery deadlines. Consequently, the Top Funds sought relief to extend their deadlines to 180 days after the financial year-end.
The relief was granted with several conditions, including that at least 25% of the Top Funds’ assets must be invested in entities with December 31 year-ends and subject to the 120-day filing requirement in their jurisdictions. Additionally, the Top Funds must disclose the extended deadline in their offering memorandum and notify unitholders of the relief granted.
The order is set to expire within one year of any amendment to NI 81-106 or other rule that affects the annual filing and delivery requirements for mutual funds.