This past month, Pastore LLC assisted a registered investment advisor (RIA) with the filing of its Form ADV. In connection therewith the firm assisted the RIA in its calculation of regulated assets under management (RAUM), which totaled over $1 billion. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) uses RAUM as its measurement of assets for registration purposes. However, RAUM has sometimes been misunderstood as representing total assets under management (AUM) for a company, and based on the firm’s experience the SEC itself has sometimes confused RAUM with AUM. RAUM does not include every type of asset that an RIA may manage, and in particular may not include certain real estate investments or investments in portfolio companies controlled by the fund. When assessing the financial condition of an RIA and its funds, it is important to distinguish between the assets counted under RAUM and the assets counted under AUM. An RIA that appears to manage a small volume of assets based on its RAUM may in fact manage a much larger volume of assets based on total AUM.
