How to research private equity firms with North American mandates

For sell-side advisers and founders working on North American transactions, building a researched list of relevant private equity firms requires going beyond a firm’s website description. A global fund that made one acquisition in Texas five years ago is not the same as a firm whose Form ADV Part 2A, current fund mandate and portfolio history all describe a consistent North American focus.

North America presents a different research challenge from most other regions: the United States has a single dominant federal register — the SEC — that covers the vast majority of significant PE managers, while Canada has a fragmented provincial system that requires multi-jurisdiction checks. Both provide documentary evidence, but they require different research steps.

Why SEC Form ADV is the starting point for US firms

Most investment advisers managing private equity funds in the United States — if they manage above the federal registration threshold or have a registered hedge fund or private fund component — file with the SEC as registered investment advisers. The Form ADV filing is a public document, and the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure system makes it searchable at adviserinfo.sec.gov.

The two most relevant parts are:

Form ADV Part 1A — the structured filing that identifies the firm, its regulatory status, the types of clients it advises, the private funds it manages, and its total regulatory assets under management. It includes fund names and gross asset values where the fund is large enough to require disclosure.

Form ADV Part 2A — the narrative brochure the firm provides to clients and prospective clients. This is where investment advisers describe their strategies, the types of companies or assets they invest in, their geographic focus or restrictions, their typical deal or investment size, and the risk factors relevant to their funds. The language in Part 2A is the firm’s own account of what it does; regulators review it for completeness and material accuracy.

For verifying a North American geographic mandate, the relevant section is typically Item 8 — Methods of Analysis, Investment Strategies and Risk of Loss. A firm with a North American or US-focused mandate will often describe geographic parameters here, but not all firms specify geography; a fund with no stated geographic restriction may invest globally despite being registered with the SEC.

What SEC registration establishes — and what it does not

SEC registration is an adviser-level fact, not a mandate-level fact. A firm is registered with the SEC because it meets the threshold for federal registration; the registration itself does not constrain where it invests. This is a critical distinction when reading a PE database that records regulatory status.

A firm that is SEC-registered and has an active North American portfolio is not the same as a firm that is SEC-registered and describes a North American geographic focus in Form ADV Part 2A. The second is better evidence; even then, the current fund’s mandate, which may be narrower or broader than the firmwide description, is what actually governs which transactions it will review.

This is the same reason that firm-level registration and fund-level mandate need to be read separately. A large US-headquartered firm may run a North American buyout fund alongside an Asia-Pacific growth equity fund — both under the same SEC registration, both with different mandates.

EDGAR as a supplementary source

For US-listed companies where a PE firm has disclosed ownership, SEC EDGAR (sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar) contains Schedule 13D and 13G filings, which investment advisers file when they acquire more than five percent of a listed company’s shares. These filings are not routine for private equity funds — which typically invest in private companies — but they appear when a PE firm:

holds an ownership position in a public company acquired before its IPO or through a privatisation
buys into a public company as a PIPE (private investment in public equity) or take-private transaction
retains ownership in a portfolio company that has gone public

Schedule 13D/G filings confirm that a firm had a reportable position in a specific public company at the time of filing. They do not describe the firm’s broader investment strategy, and they are absent for most private-company investments because private-company ownership does not trigger the disclosure threshold. They are a useful supplementary signal for a firm whose strategy involves listed or public-to-private transactions, not a substitute for Form ADV.

Canadian PE managers and provincial registration

Canada does not have a single federal investment adviser register equivalent to the SEC IAPD. Canadian securities regulation is a provincial responsibility. The major provincial securities commissions relevant to private equity fund managers are:

Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) — covers investment advisers established in Ontario, including most of the largest Canadian PE managers headquartered in Toronto
Alberta Securities Commission (ASC) — covers Calgary-headquartered managers; significant for energy and natural resources mandates
British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) — covers Vancouver-based managers
Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) — covers Quebec-based managers; proceedings and disclosures are often bilingual

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) coordinates national registration standards and provides a multi-province search through its National Registration Search tool at securities-administrators.ca/registration. This allows a single search across provinces to confirm whether a firm is registered and in which jurisdictions, without visiting each provincial commission separately.

For smaller Canadian PE managers or those dealing only with accredited investors under exemption, disclosure requirements are lighter than the SEC’s Form ADV regime. A firm that is not registered as a portfolio manager or exempt market dealer may have limited publicly searchable filings; the database field will reflect whatever evidence could be sourced.

Distinguishing a North American mandate from North American registration

The most frequent source of confusion in North American PE research is reading registration jurisdiction as a proxy for investment geography. Several scenarios produce misleading results:

US-registered, globally invested: Many global PE managers use their US SEC registration as their primary regulatory home. A US-registered firm may run a European buyout fund, a pan-Asian growth fund and a North American credit fund from the same adviser entity. The firm is North American by registration; its mandates are geographically varied by fund.

Offshore-structured, North American focused: Some PE managers structure their funds using Cayman Islands vehicles and may have limited US regulatory filings despite investing primarily in North American companies. Their Form ADV filings may be minimal; they may appear in a database with limited geography or fund information.

Canadian manager, US-listed portfolio: A Canadian PE manager may hold US portfolio companies that appear on public records. The manager’s regulatory status is provincial Canadian, but its investment activity includes US targets.

For each of these cases, reading the stated strategy versus current deployment together with the geographic evidence reduces misclassification. A firm must be assessed on what it states its mandate to be, not just where it is registered or where a past portfolio company happened to be incorporated.

A five-step North America research workflow

Search the SEC IAPD for the firm by name. Confirm its CRD number, registration status and whether it has an active Form ADV on file. A firm that is not SEC-registered may still be relevant if it is a Canadian provincial registrant or an exempt adviser; absence from IAPD is not the same as absence from private markets.
Read Form ADV Part 2A — specifically Item 8. Note any geographic language: does the fund description specify North America, the United States, Canada or a more specific sub-region? Does it describe a global mandate with North America as one of several geographies? If no geographic restriction is stated, the fund may be geographically unconstrained.
Check Form ADV Part 1 Schedule D for the private funds the adviser manages. Fund names and gross asset values are disclosed for larger funds; fund names often contain geographic signals (“North America Fund IV”, “US Buyout Fund”) that supplement the Part 2A strategy description.
Run a CSA National Registration Search for any firm where a Canadian provincial mandate is possible. Confirm whether the firm is registered as a portfolio manager or exempt market dealer in relevant provinces, and in which jurisdiction.
Compare the database strategy and geography fields against what the filings establish. The database should record the geography as stated, historical, or blank — not inferred. A database filter that shows “North America” is only as reliable as the source evidence behind it; the research steps above verify the source.

What the database records and what it cannot establish

A private equity database sourcing strategy and geography from regulatory filings will record geographic scope as it appears in those filings. That is the floor of evidence. It does not establish:

Whether the current fund (which may differ from the one described in the last ADV amendment) has the same geographic mandate
Whether the firm is actively reviewing North American deals at the time of the research
Whether a portfolio of North American companies was built under the same mandate as the current fund or across multiple fund generations with different geographic scopes
Whether a US-registered adviser with no stated geographic restriction invests primarily in North America or globally

The /coverage page describes how SeekPrivateEquity sources and represents geographic strategy data. The /pricing page describes the tools available for filtering by region and combining database research with regulatory sources.

North America is the largest private equity market globally measured by capital under management, and the SEC IAPD is the most detailed public adviser register available anywhere. Using it systematically — alongside Form ADV Part 2A strategy language, Canadian provincial registration checks, and the distinctions between adviser registration and fund mandate — produces geographic research that is grounded in evidence rather than firm-website geography claims or database fields taken at face value.

The companion articles on researching private equity firms with Asia-Pacific mandates, researching private equity firms with European mandates, and researching private equity firms with Middle East mandates cover the equivalent workflows for APAC, Europe and the GCC, where the absence of a single dominant register — and the fund domicile versus investment geography gap — make multi-source research even more important.

Frequently asked questions

What is the main public source for researching US private equity firms?

The SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure system (IAPD) at adviserinfo.sec.gov is the primary public register for US-registered investment advisers, including most significant PE managers. It provides access to Form ADV Part 2A, which investment advisers file with the SEC and which includes the firm's stated investment strategies, geographic focus, client types and risk factors in the adviser's own words.

Does a PE firm's SEC registration mean it only invests in North America?

No. A firm registered with the SEC may invest globally. SEC registration reflects where the investment adviser entity is established and the regulatory threshold it has crossed — typically US$25 million in assets under advisory management — not the geographic scope of its investments. Many globally active PE managers use their US SEC registration as their primary regulatory disclosure, and their Form ADV Part 2A will describe geographic scope statements if they invest outside North America.

How are Canadian private equity managers regulated differently from US firms?

Canadian investment advisers are regulated provincially rather than federally. A firm managing private equity capital and dealing with investors in Ontario registers with the Ontario Securities Commission; one operating from Alberta registers with the Alberta Securities Commission; one in British Columbia with the BCSC; and one in Quebec with the Autorité des marchés financiers. The Canadian Securities Administrators coordinate standards across provinces, and the National Registration Search tool allows multi-jurisdiction checks, but there is no single federal Canadian register equivalent to the SEC IAPD.

Does a North American portfolio tell you a PE firm is currently deploying in the region?

No. A portfolio of North American companies reflects historical investment activity across one or more fund vintages. It does not confirm the geographic mandate of the firm's current fund, nor does it indicate that the firm is actively reviewing new opportunities in the region. It is a useful supporting signal to investigate further, not a confirmation of current deployment.

Why might the geography field be blank for a North American PE firm?

A blank geography field means the field could not be reliably sourced from available public evidence at the time of last review. For US firms, Form ADV Part 2A may not specify a geographic restriction if the fund is not geographically constrained; the database field reflects the level of specificity in the filing, not the firm's actual coverage. Blank means data is unavailable from the sources used, not that the firm has no geographic focus.

Sources

Investment Adviser Public Disclosure — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; accessed September 30, 2026
EDGAR Company Search — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; accessed September 30, 2026
Canadian Securities Administrators — National Registration Search — Canadian Securities Administrators; accessed September 30, 2026