Through my book and more generally as a fan of Warren Buffett, I have enjoyed communicating in an open and transparent way with my investors — with the full expectation that I would be read by a broader audience.
My goal in doing this has been to do my best to set an example for how a fiduciary, or a financial intermediary ought to behave.
But as the assets grew, we had to register with FINMA and with the SEC. These organizations take a very different view towards communications by private manager like myself with the general public. They do not make a distinction between communication for the sake of edifying and educating and audience, and communication for the sake of marketing and selling investments.
For a while I butted heads with the regulatory people. I kept reiterating my point that in so many cases, the people reading my materials and attending my meetings were just interested to learn. They had no intention of investing with Aquamarine Fund and similarly, I had no intention of taking an investment from them. They just wanted to be able to read the Annual Report, or other materials for their own education.
As you can imagine, the regulatory system is stubborn and did not want to recognize this distinction.
It’s for that reason that we had to stop sending fund-related communications from me and this is a big part of why I started a general newsletter that does not mention the fund.
However there is an exception to the communication rule — reverse solicitation.
The Reverse Solicitation Rule
The reverse solicitation rule says that we are allowed to communicate fund-related material to an individual if they approached us and asked for it. Most significant it is not sufficient for us to simply put our hands on our hearts and to claim that the person approached us first. We have to document it.
We are now in a position to do this. So if you are interested in receiving fund-related communications from us, you should fill out this form here:
