What is SEC Form NSAR-AT

SEC Form NSAR-AT is a semi-annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that registered investment companies make as part of their NSAR form filing requirement. This filing is made in lieu of the standard filing at the end of their first six months of a year in which the company is in transition due to changing the date of their fiscal year-end. The NSAR, which is specific to registered investment management companies, requires those companies to disclose some financial information (i.e. sales of shares, portfolio turnover rate, etc.) included in the company's annual and/or semi-annual shareholder reports.

BREAKING DOWN SEC Form NSAR-AT

SEC Form NSAR-AT and all of its related filings are covered under Section 30 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 ("1940 Act") and Sections 13 and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. They require investment companies and trusts to file semi-annual and annual reports with the SEC.

Form N-CEN Replaces Form NSAR-AT

On October 13, 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted rules, forms, and amendments to certain existing rules and forms to modernize and enhance the reporting and disclosure obligations of registered investment companies. As part of these changes, the SEC adopted Form N-CEN to replace Form N-SAR. It requires affected registered investment companies to annually report certain census-type information. Form N-CEN requires all registered investment companies (except face-amount certificate companies) to report detailed census-type information on an annual basis. This new form streamlines and updates information currently reported to the SEC under Form N-SAR. Form N-CEN must be filed within 75 days of the end of a registered investment company’s fiscal year, rather than semi-annually as is currently required by Form N-SAR for most funds.

While many of the information items on Form N-SAR carry forward to Form N-CEN, the new form also requires a host of new information, including:

  • Background information about the registrant, such as its LEI number, CIK number, the fund’s public website, and location of books and records
  • Information on whether the registrant issues a class of securities registered under the Securities Act of 1933
  • Information regarding a fund’s board of directors
  • Various information relating to a fund’s chief compliance officer (CCO), including the name and Employer Identification Number (EIN) of any entity other than the fund or an affiliated person of the fund that provides compensation to the CCO
  • Information regarding securities lending activities
  • Whether the fund received financial support from an affiliated entity
  • Whether the fund relied upon any exemptive orders and the corresponding release number(s)
  • Whether an independent public auditor issued an unqualified opinion
  • Information concerning potential accounting issues identified by a fund’s accountant
  • Certain information for index funds
  • Whether an open-end fund made any payments to shareholders or reprocessed shareholder accounts as a result of an NAV error
  • Information pertaining to each of an open-end fund’s separate classes
  • Whether a fund is an ETF, exchange-traded managed fund (ETMF), index fund, inverse fund, interval fund, fund of funds, master-feeder fund, money market fund, or target date fund, among other choices
  • Further detailed information if a fund is either an ETF or ETMF
  • Information concerning rights offerings and secondary offerings by a closed-end fund or SBIC