Privacy policy

Privacy policy

FS Investments (“we,” “our” or “us”) and its affiliates take measures to ensure that the use and disclosure of your private personal information is consistent with applicable law.

This Consumer Information Privacy Policy (this “Privacy Policy”) explains what non-public personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we protect your non-public personal information, and how and why, in certain cases, we share such information with our affiliates or with other parties. This Privacy Policy may be amended from time to time.

This Privacy Policy applies to non-public personal information collected or used in connection with our investment offerings and services to individuals for personal, family or household purposes. This disclosure is made on behalf of FS Investments and its affiliates listed under the heading “Application of Privacy Policy to FS Investments and our affiliates” below.

Information that we collect and may disclose

We collect information from and about you in order to provide the level of service that you expect. Non-public personal information about you may include: your name, mailing address, email address, tax identification number, age, account information, investment amounts in our sponsored offerings, marital status, number of dependents, assets, debts, income, net worth, employment history, financial statements, beneficiary information, personal bank account information, credit history information, broker-dealer, financial professional, individual retirement account (“IRA”) custodian, account joint owners and other similar parties, the FS Investments’ investments and services you purchase, your FS Investments investment balance and transactional history, and the fact that you are or have been an investor in FS Investments’ investments and particulars related to any such investment.

Specific examples of personal information that we may collect and may disclose to affiliates and certain third parties include:

  • Information we receive from you on applications, subscription agreements or other forms. Examples include your name, mailing address and email address.
  • Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates and others, such as account balances, payment history, account activity and financial statements. If you visit our website, information you submit to us on our website forms and information we collect through ‘cookies.’
  • If you create a login and password on our website to access your FS Investments investment, we will collect and use the login and password to verify your identity and for our internal use in maintaining your website account.
  • Information obtained from others, such as credit reports from consumer credit reporting agencies.

How we use and disclose information

FS Investments, its affiliates and its third-party service providers work together to provide a variety of investments and services and may need to share some or all of the non-public personal information collected about you to maintain an efficient and effective network of offerings and services. We believe that by sharing information about you and your accounts with our affiliates and partners, we are better able to serve your investment needs and to suggest services or educational materials that may be of interest to you. The responsible use and disclosure of the non-public personal information we collect is crucial to our ability to provide our clients with the types of products and services they expect and may occur under a variety of different circumstances. For example, we may:

  • Use your personally identifiable information internally for the purposes of furthering our business, which may include analyzing your information, matching your information with the information of others, processing services, maintaining accounts, resolving disputes, preventing fraud and verifying your identity.
  • Disclose your personally identifiable information when required by law (e.g., in connection with judicial, administrative or investigative matters).
  • Use and disclose your personally identifiable information on an aggregate basis. This means that we may combine parts of your information with parts of the information from our other investors without including your name, complete telephone number, complete email address or your street address in the combination. Examples of how we use aggregate information include determining the most common ZIP Code among investors that use the website and disclosing that ZIP Code to other parties, or determining and disclosing demographic information such as the average income of investors in our sponsored investments.

Sharing with our affiliates

We may share your personally identifiable information with our affiliates engaged in investment or other related financial service activities. Examples might include customer-initiated service requests, establishing and managing your investment, completing your investor transactions and sharing information with parties acting at your request and on your account, such as your broker-dealer, financial professional, joint owners and IRA custodian.

Sharing with non-affiliated service providers

We may disclose your personal information to non-affiliated service providers who perform business functions on our behalf, which may include marketing of our own sponsored investments and services, check printing and data processing. Non-affiliated third-party service providers often aid us in the efficient and effective delivery of services, and there may be circumstances in which it is necessary to disclose non-public personal information we collect to such parties. However, before we disclose non-public personal information to a non-affiliated party, we require it to agree to keep our investor information confidential and secure and to use it only as authorized by us.

Also, we will only share your non-public information with non-affiliated third parties under circumstances not covered by state or federal law “opt-out” notice exceptions, such as servicing a financial product or service authorized by the customer, resolving consumer disputes and protecting against potential fraud or unauthorized transactions. Should this policy ever change in the future, you will be given adequate notice and the option to “opt-out” of such disclosure.

We may also disclose the following information to companies that perform marketing services on our behalf or to other financial institutions with whom we have joint marketing agreements:

  • Information we receive from you on applications or other forms, such as your name, address, Social Security number, assets and income.
  • Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates or others, such as your payment history and parties to the transactions.
  • Information we receive from a consumer-reporting agency, such as your creditworthiness and credit history.

We require all joint marketers to have written contracts with us that specify appropriate use of your personal information, require them to take steps to safeguard your personal information and prohibit them from making unauthorized or unlawful use of your personal information.

FS Investments and its affiliates do not share, sell or rent your personal, private information with outside marketers who may want to offer their own products and services to you.

How we protect your information

FS Investments and its affiliates maintain a comprehensive information security program designed to ensure the security and confidentiality of customer information, protect against threats or hazards to the security of such information and prevent unauthorized access. This program includes:

  • Procedures and specifications for administrative, technical and physical safeguards.
  • Security procedures related to the processing, storage, retention and disposal of confidential information.
  • Programs to detect, prevent and, when necessary, respond to attacks, intrusions or unauthorized access to confidential information.
  • Restricting access of customer information to employees who need to know that information to provide products and services to you, and appointing specific employees to oversee our information security program.

Availability of this Privacy Policy

We will provide notice of this Privacy Policy annually, as long as you maintain an ongoing relationship with us. The most up-to-date Privacy Policy is posted on our website. For additional information you may call our Privacy Policy Specialist at 215‑220‑6651.

Notification of changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change this Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on our website so our users and investors are always aware of what information we collect, use and disclose. If at any point we decide to use or disclose your personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify you in writing. We will otherwise use and disclose a user’s or an investor’s personally identifiable information in accordance with the privacy policy that was in effect when such information was collected.

Change in control

If FS Investments or any of its affiliates experience a “change in control” (as defined below), then we may amend our information practices as described in this Privacy Policy. We will disclose your personally identifiable information to the company or other legal entity that succeeds us (subject to the change in control or the operation of the website). The privacy policy of the succeeding legal entity will then govern the personally identifiable information that FS Investments or its affiliates collected from you under this Privacy Policy or such successor entity’s privacy policy. However, if applicable law prohibits the succeeding legal entity’s privacy policy from governing your personally identifiable information, then this Privacy Policy shall continue to govern. “Change in control” means any of the following events:

  • A reorganization, merger, consolidation, acquisition or other restructuring involving all or substantially all of FS Investments or an affiliate’s voting securities and/or assets, by operation of law or otherwise.
  • Insolvency.
  • A general assignment for the benefit of creditors.
  • The appointment of a receiver.
  • The filing of a bankruptcy or insolvency proceeding.
  • The liquidation of assets.

Questions about this Privacy Policy

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy and/or our personal information practices, please call our Privacy Policy Specialist at 215‑220‑6651.

Application of Privacy Policy to FS Investments and our affiliates

This Privacy Policy applies to FS Investments and the following affiliated FS Investments companies: FS Investment Solutions, LLC; Franklin Square Holdings, L.P.; Franklin Square Holdings, G.P., LLC; any fund or other investment sponsored by FS Investments and their respective subsidiaries and investment advisers; and all other funds or entities created in the future that offer investment or services to individuals for personal, family or household purposes.

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