If a firm has say an institutional division and a private wealth management division, can one or the other become GIPS compliant, or does the whole firm have to comply?
I think the while firm has to be GIPS compliant…and if only a division has to be compliant, then it has to be defined as a firm…i.e. how its independent from the rest of the company in terms of people, decision makers, assets etc. So, for ex- if the PWM is independent from the rest of the firm, it can claim compliance…otherwise, the whole firm has to be GIPS compliant. Hope that helps. Pls. correct me if I am wrong on this.
If the division is held out to customers as a separate entity, then it may very well be defined as a firm. On the other hand, if the division does not have separate staff, then it probably cannot be defined as a separate firm. I think Schweser puts it this something like this: Separate personnel is indication of a separate business, so it could be defined as a separate firm.
Just to add on above posts: Stated divisions can as well have common staff for eg. backoffice but still any one can get GIPS compliance separately…