ACA Group (ACA) has appointed Martin Fawzy to its London-based team of consultants, which provide regional US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulatory support to hedge funds, private equity and diversified financial services firms domiciled outside of the US.
Fawzy joined ACA’s San Francisco office in October 2018 bringing more than 20 years of investment adviser compliance experience to the role.
He has experience designing, managing, and supporting the compliance programs of advisers to hedge funds, real estate funds, private equity funds, venture capital funds, mutual fund companies, wrap accounts, and separate accounts.
Before ACA, he held several chief commercial officer and senior compliance officer roles at SEC-registered firms, including Symphony Asset Management, Fuller & Thaler Asset Management, SEI Investments and Nuveen Investments.
During his career, Fawzy also previously worked at a regulatory compliance consulting firm, where his client base included exempt reporting advisers and advisers specialising in cryptocurrency, retail investor strategies, equity, debt and currency portfolios.
Fawzy also acted as an internal auditor for US banks where he reviewed trust operations, lending, collateralised obligations, investment advisers, trading desks and trading operations.
In his new role, he will be joining Crystal Christian, senior principal consultant, and Kira Karabatak, consultant.
Both Christian and Karabatak worked with investment advisers in the US prior to moving to the UK and have assisted numerous clients with SEC registrations, SEC examinations, and the development and maintenance of their SEC compliance programmes.
Fawzy’s move follows the lifting of a two-year-long moratorium on UK firms applying for SEC registration.
In 2018, the SEC froze applications from European Union-based firms, due to concerns that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) prevented registered investment advisers from providing certain books and records to the SEC for inspection.
Fawzy comments: “I’m excited to join ACA’s UK-based SEC team supporting European-based investment managers and advisers doing business in the US and attracting US investors. Our practice provides RIAs and ERAs with a unique offering of on-the-ground, comprehensive SEC compliance support from a team of SEC compliance specialists with decades of experience working in the US.”
He adds: “And importantly, as we are supported by a strong ACA team of over 600 individuals, which includes more than 90 former regulators and hundreds of compliance, risk, regulatory hosting, environmental, social and governance, performance, CFTC/NFA, Investment Company, bank regulation, and regulatory technology specialists, we can offer firms a holistic service that helps them reimagine their governance, risk, and compliance.”
