§ 2634.406 - Initial portfolio.

§ 2634.406 Initial portfolio.

(a) Qualified blind trust.

(1) None of the assets initially placed in the portfolio of the blind trust shall include assets the holding of which by An interested party may not place any asset in the blind trust that any interested party would be prohibited from holding by the Act, by the implementing regulations, or by any other applicable Federal law, Executive order, or regulation.

(2) Except as described in paragraph (a)(1) of this section, an interested party may put most types of assets (such as cash, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or real estate) into a qualified blind trust.

(b) Qualified diversified trust.

(1) The initial portfolio may not contain securities of entities having substantial activities in the an employee's primary area of Federal responsibility. If requested by the Director, the designated agency ethics official for the employee's agency shall must certify whether the proposed portfolio meets this standard.

(2) The initial assets of a diversified trust shall must comprise a widely well-diversified portfolio of readily marketable securities.

(i) A portfolio will be widely well diversified if:

(A) The value of the securities concentrated in any particular or limited economic or geographic sector is no more than twenty 20 percent of the total; and

(B) The value of the securities of any single entity (other than the United States Government) is no more than five percent of the total.

(ii) A security will be readily marketable if:

(A) Daily price quotations for the security appear regularly in newspapers of general circulationmedia, including websites, that publish the information; and

(B) The trust holds the security in a quantity that does not unduly impair liquidity.

(iii) The interested party or the party's representative shall must provide the Director with a detailed list of the securities proposed for inclusion in the portfolio, specifying their fair market value and demonstrating that these securities meet the requirements of this paragraph. The Director will determine whether the initial assets of the trust proposed for certification comprise a widely diversified portfolio of readily marketable securities.

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iv) The independent trustee shall not acquire additional securities in excess of the diversification standards.

(c) Hybrid qualified trust. A qualified trust may contain both a blind portfolio of assets and a diversified portfolio of assets. The Office of Government Ethics refers to this arrangement as a hybrid qualified trust.