More than 1,500 advisers to private funds and hedge funds have registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission since new requirements for doing so were included in the Dodd-Frank Act.

The SEC's tally, announced on Friday, is in addition to 2,557 private fund advisers who had already voluntarily registered. In total, 11,002 investment advisers are SEC-registered. In accordance with the Dodd-Frank Act's requirement that mid-sized advisers (managing less than $100 million of assets) move from federal to state oversight, roughly 2,300 of them made that transition prior to a June 28 deadline.

Title IV of the Dodd-Frank eliminated the “private adviser” or “15 Client” exemption from registration under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, forcing them to register with the SEC and meet requirements for compliance and ethics programs. Those requirements are among the reasons that earlier this month the SEC announced a new program for conducting risk-based examinations of newly registered private fund advisers over the next two years.

The SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations is in the process of notifying newly registered investment advisers—those who registered with the Commission after the Dodd-Frank Act became effective on July 21, 2011—that they now must take a "presence exam” to assess their compliance with federal securities laws. OCIE will conduct the examinations through the National Exam Program (NEP) over the next two years.

The exams will focus on: ensuring that marketing materials are free of false, misleading, and manipulative statements; reviewing portfolio management with an eye towards fiduciary responsibility and consistency with investor disclosures; assessing efforts to identify and mitigate conflicts of interest; and reviewing the security of investor assets and compliance with custody rules.

If serious deficiencies are found, in addition to sending an examination summary letter, NEP staff may refer the problems to the SEC's Division of Enforcement, a self-regulatory organization, or state regulatory agency for possible action.