DLA Piper handbook maps the 1940 Act rules for interval funds

DLA Piper's handbook on interval funds, summarized by the Interval Fund Tracker, walks through the 1940 Act and the related statutes and regulations that bear on the vehicle. The tracker's write-up describes the 1940 Act as the key regulatory regime, providing what it calls critical protections for investors.

The handbook's central argument is direct: an interval fund can be a suitable vehicle for alternative strategies, meaning strategies designed to produce returns that are not highly correlated to the broader stock and bond markets. DLA Piper also connects the vehicle to the current rulebook, citing FINRA's customer statement rule (RN 15-02) and the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule with its best-interest contract exemption as making interval funds attractive to independent broker-dealers and other advisors.

For the operating chart, the tracker points to Griffin Capital's whitepaper, Understanding Interval Funds. The investment adviser manages the portfolio according to the prospectus's objectives. An administrator oversees operations and regulatory compliance. A board of trustees provides governance. An independent accounting firm performs annual audits and certifies the financial statements. Griffin also produced a graphic of the key actors.

Taken together, the two documents give an advisor a plain-English map of a registered alternative wrapper: how it runs, who answers for what, and why the structure is being offered as a fit for the compliance-heavy advisory world.