I’ve been sifting through multiple reports published over the past few months that seek to identify the direction of travel in investor flows and their preferences for alternative investor funds. In addition, our own engagement with allocators, especially with our AIMA Global Investor Board, gives us further perspective on the shifting landscape for fund raising.

As with most things, it’s not black and white and reports show very mixed findings on both the direction and degree of flows.  In some I read that multi-strategy hedge funds have seen US$30 billion of net outflows over 12 months whilst other reports show modest net inflows to these funds, albeit with large gross numbers heading in both directions. Perhaps this disparity is caused by some funds opting to return capital to protect performance while other new firms have launched this year.  For equity long/short funds there are some reports of this being the sector with most outflows, but another report identifies it as the main strategy where investors are seeking to make new allocations to for the remainder of the year.

Confused? I’m not surprised. On balance, total hedge fund assets have reached new highs, but this is down mostly to positive performance. Anecdotally, our members confirm that the capital raising environment has been challenging.  Total net investors flow YTD is most likely be in the red which could be explained partly by the need for investors to meet their earlier commitments to private market funds. That could be about to change as one of the most recent surveys identifies that investor preferences have tilted more towards hedge funds than private credit funds, for the first time in several years.

Which brings me to my main pitch. AIMA is hosting our 10th Global Investor Forum in Toronto on 8-9 October and it is not too late to sign up. With 400+ delegates already of which just over half are allocators it is a perfect opportunity to seek clarity on what I have described above. The agenda is here. You will see that the forum looks at alternatives in the round, both at public and private market funds. You can hear from and meet senior allocators to get the most updated sense of their decision making to assist in your business development strategy. What’s more and if I’m going to be shameless, the price of attendance is a mere fraction of other such conferences. I’ll be there and I hope to see many of you there too.