(815 ILCS 5/2.11) (from Ch. 121 1/2, par. 137.2-11)
    Sec. 2.11. Investment adviser. "Investment adviser" means any person who, for compensation, engages in this State in the business of advising others, either directly or through publications or writings, as to the value of securities or as to the advisability of investing in, purchasing, or selling securities or who, in this State for direct or indirect compensation and as part of a regular advisory business, issues or promulgates analyses or reports concerning securities or any financial planner or other person who, as an integral component of other financially related services, provides the foregoing investment advisory services to others for compensation and as part of a business or who holds himself or herself out as providing the foregoing investment advisory services to others for compensation; but "investment adviser" does not include:
    (1) a bank or trust company, or the regular employees of a bank or trust company;
    (2) any lawyer, accountant, engineer, geologist or teacher (i) whose performance of such services is solely incidental to the practice of his or her profession or (ii) who:
        (A) does not exercise investment discretion with
    
respect to the assets of clients or maintain custody of the assets of clients for the purpose of investing those assets, except when the person is acting as a bona fide fiduciary in a capacity such as an executor, trustee, personal representative, estate or trust agent, guardian, conservator, or person serving in a similar fiduciary capacity;
        (B) does not accept or receive, directly or
    
indirectly, any commission, fee, or other remuneration contingent upon the purchase or sale of any specific security by a client of such person; and
        (C) does not advise on the purchase or sale of
    
specific securities, except that this clause (C) shall not apply when the advice about specific securities is based on financial statement analyses or tax considerations that are reasonably related to and in connection with the person's profession;
    (3) any registered dealer or partner, officer, director or regular employee of a registered dealer, or registered salesperson, whose performance of these services, in each case, is solely incidental to the conduct of the business of the registered dealer or registered salesperson, as the case may be, and who receives no special compensation, directly or indirectly, for such services;
    (4) any publisher or regular employee of such publisher of a bona fide newspaper, news magazine or business or financial publication of regular and established paid circulation;
    (5) any person whose advice, analyses or reports relate only to securities which are direct obligations of, or obligations guaranteed as to principal or interest by, the United States, any state or any political subdivision of any state, or any public agency or public instrumentality of any one or more of the foregoing;
    (5.5) any person who is a federal covered investment adviser; or
    (6) any other persons who are not within the intent of this Section as the Secretary of State may designate by rules and regulations or order.
(Source: P.A. 90-70, eff. 7-8-97.)