In recent years, AIMA has substantially increased the opportunities for members to hear from, and meet with, investors. This is especially evident in our series of annual events that take place in multiple locations around the world.

The largest of these is our AIMA Global Investor Forum, which took place last month in Toronto. We welcomed over 600 delegates from 18 countries, with nearly half of these being investors (in the words of one investor attending, “a good shark-to-seal ratio!”). The ability to schedule one-on-one meetings over the two days and meet allocators through small roundtables was especially appreciated by all.  You can read the key takeaways from the forum discussions here.

In September, we gathered in Sydney for our Alternatives Investment Week which included a dedicated private credit event and culminated with the AIMA Australia Forum attended by many of the country’s superannuation scheme allocators, as well as visitors from overseas.

Since the summer, members have also been able to meet with investors at curated roundtables during other events in London, Singapore and most recently, last week at our AIMA APAC Forum in Hong Kong. There, we added InvestorXchange sessions bringing allocators and managers together for smaller group discussions.

We will host our 5th AIMA/ACC Private Credit Investor Forum in Miami next February and ahead of that we are proud to have been asked by Abu Dhabi Finance Week to host the private credit content in December. ADFW attracts over 20,000 participants and last year’s event the attendees represented global financial firms that collectively managed over US$42.5 trillion in AUM.

We are very fortunate to be supported by an advisory board of senior investment representatives from 24 investing institutions around the world. The AIMA Global Investor Board meets regularly and provides us with deep insights on their decision making of which we share highlights with our members. This is supplemented by periodical investor sentiment surveys we conduct more broadly to monitor changes in their allocation preferences across the spectrum of alternatives.  

AIMA has come a long way since we first produced the standard Due Diligence Questionnaire for investors to engage with managers 35 years ago. While other templates have emerged since, the updated AIMA version remains the benchmark that informs all other DDQs.  

Investors are the lifeblood without which our industry would not exist and their work with AIMA continues to power industry sound practice and thought leadership for all. We encourage all business development and investor relations teams at our member firms to actively benefit from AIMA’s investor engagement work through our events, peer groups and more. If you are reading this and not sure if your colleagues are fully aware of this work, please do forward this letter directly to them.
 

With best wishes,

Jack Inglis 
CEO, AIMA