The Ontario Securities Commission has published a decision that securities regulators made on behalf of CI Investments Inc., but which the OSC says other fund managers can rely upon, allowing firms to roll up their clone funds without unitholder votes.

The regulators granted an exemption from the unitholder approval requirement for proposed mergers of RSP clone funds into their corresponding underlying funds due to the change in foreign content restrictions.

The exemption was sought by CI, but the commission notes that the, “Exemption and approval [was] granted on a representative basis so that other fund managers of RSP clone funds, in addition to the applicant, that comply with the conditions of the decision may rely upon it.”

Those conditions include issuing a press release announcing its intention to merge funds; alerting dealers who have clients invested in the terminating fund so that dealers and their sales reps will be in position to discuss the respective mergers with their clients; sending a confirmation to unitholders by March 1, 2006; among other things.