On June 11, 2025 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) again extended the compliance date for the most recent Form PF amendments, providing a near four-month reprieve for firms struggling with implementation.[1] This extension, providing for an October 1, 2025 compliance date, pushes back implementation by a total of nearly seven months from the original March 12, 2025 deadline. The SEC and CFTC first extended the compliance date in January 2025 to June 12, 2025.
In advocating for the extension, SEC Chairman Atkins said the proposed changes to Form PF require additional time for proper implementation. The decision comes amid mounting pressure from private fund advisers and their service providers for the delay, citing widespread technological and administrative challenges in meeting the new Form PF reporting requirements. Industry advocates, like the Investment Adviser Association and the Managed Fund Association, have argued that the amendments’ complexity were underestimated during the initial rulemaking process.
The current Form PF amendments were originally passed in February 2024 under different SEC leadership and are designed to enhance systemic risk monitoring and regulatory oversight of private fund advisers. Among other changes, the amendments include required separate reporting for each component fund in master-feeder and parallel fund structures (rather than allowing aggregated reporting as previously permitted), new requirements for trading vehicle reporting, and mandated “look through” reporting for fund-of-funds investments. In particular, Sections 1a and 1b of Form PF also include additional identifying information regarding the adviser, its related persons, and private fund assets under management (including with respect to the private fund’s assets, financing, investor concentration and performance). The amendments also intend to harmonize reporting timing by large hedge fund advisers and large liquidity fund advisers by requiring those advisers’ quarterly reports to be filed on a calendar quarter basis (rather than fiscal quarter). Additionally, the amendments introduce more granular investment strategy categories, including “digital assets” and “litigation finance,” and require enhanced counterparty exposure reporting through consolidated tables.
For large hedge fund advisers, the amendments mandate more detailed position reporting, including separate disclosure of positions held physically, synthetically, or through derivatives. The amendments require hedge fund advisers to report their top five long and short netted positions and the top ten netted long and short positions, along with adjusted exposure reporting to provide insight into underlying risk exposures. The changes also expand requirements for monthly net asset value and gross asset value reporting, inflow and outflow activity, and enhanced counterparty exposure information designed to improve the regulators’ ability to monitor systemic risks.
In approving this extension, the SEC and CFTC indicated that the extension would improve the quality of the data reported on Form PF once the amendments are implemented and help avoid reporting cycle challenges.
However this second extension also suggests there is a potential for the Form PF amendments to be delayed indefinitely. Chairman Atkins signaled his skepticism of the amendments in the extension announcement, stating, “I have directed the staff to undertake a comprehensive review of Form PF. I have serious concerns whether the government’s use of this data justifies the massive burdens it imposes. We should work hard to keep our information requests to a minimum, requesting only what is needed and no more.”[2] His statement reflect a regulatory philosophy focused on removing unnecessary burdens on market participants and suggests that he may see the additional information mandated under the Form PF amendments to be superfluous.
SEC Commissioner Crenshaw’s dissent highlighted concerns that the extension may be used as a mechanism for reconsidering or potentially abandoning the amendments altogether. Her statement pointed to language in the extension release indicating that the SEC and the CFTC may continue to consider whether the amendments raise substantial questions of fact, law, or policy during the period prior to the amendments’ new compliance date of October 1, 2025.[3]
The extension occurred alongside a broader regulatory pullback by Chairman Atkins. On June 12, the SEC formally withdrew 14proposed rules that had been pending from the previous administration, including proposals covering conflicts of interest associated with predictive data analytics, custody requirements, cybersecurity risk management, ESG disclosures, and outsourcing by investment advisers. The move signals a strategic shift in regulatory priorities and approach under the current SEC leadership.
Until and unless the SEC says otherwise, private fund advisers will need to treat the October 2025 implementation date as real and prepare for the additional reporting requirements under the Form PF amendments. However, there is room to suggest that either more extensions or even permanently shelving the recent Form PF amendments may be in store.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/rules-regulations/2025/06/s7-22-22
[2] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/atkins-statement-open-meeting-061125
[3] https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/crenshaw-statement-form-pf-061125
