The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) is in the process of updating its flagship due diligence questionnaire (DDQ), the AIMA Illustrative Questionnaire for the Due Diligence of Investment Managers.

The AIMA DDQ is used by prospective investors when assessing investment managers and is considered to be the industry-standard template. By having a standardised set of questions, the DDQ also helps managers respond efficiently to requests for information from multiple investors.

The new edition of the DDQ is due to be published in March 2025. The DDQ was last substantively revised in 2019 and was first published in 1997.

We recognise that updating the DDQ may require managers to devote significant time to filling in the new form. To ease the potential burden, we are endeavouring to remove or consolidate at least as many questions as we add. We will also be providing tools to help managers track where the new version differs from the previous one.

Changes are expected to include at least the following:

• Introducing the ability to add questions to the format and to add explanations to responses otherwise calling for a yes/no or multiple choice response;
• Splitting the basic strategy details module into a version for trading strategies and a separate version for private markets strategies;
• Removing the technical content control text boxes;
• Integrating questions on the use of technology, including cyber security, cloud and artificial intelligence, the manager’s approach to sustainability, and the identity of, and relationships held by, the members of the fund’s governing body, which all were previously covered solely by separate modules or other questionnaires;
• Removal of some questions calling for information that can change rapidly, like performance, in favour of samples of the types of ongoing reporting that investors may receive that cover those topics;
• Elimination of identified duplicative questions; and
• Revisions to reflect the input of members that is yet to come.

The robust input of members into the update process is vital.

We are calling on manager members and investors to let us know what portions of the DDQ they would like to see refreshed, extended or pared back. Are there topics you get asked about frequently but which are not covered sufficiently, or at all, in the current version of the DDQ? Are there questions you think are redundant or unnecessary? Are there series of questions that do not quite get to the right issues in your view or that you think do not make sense as a group?

All comments are welcome and gratefully received. To assure there is enough time to process any adjustments and finalise the revised DDQ in time for launch, we are asking for any comments to be sent to Jennifer Wood by no later than Friday, 10 January.

Logged in members can access the current versions of each of the modules that make up this DDQ on the AIMA website here.