The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) has launched a new transparency initiative, supporting the principle of full transparency and supervisory disclosure of risk exposures and positions by hedge fund managers to their national regulators.

"We want to dispel once and for all those misconceptions that the hedge fund industry is opaque and uncooperative," said Andrew Baker, chief executive of AIAM. "That's why we are declaring our support for the principle of full transparency of systemically significant positions and risk exposures by hedge fund managers to their national regulators through a regular reporting framework. We are confident that our members recognise that it is in everyone's best interests if we cooperate fully in the important on-going international efforts to examine and improve the supervisory framework of the future," he added.

The policies in the platform cover the reporting standard of risk exposures to regulators; an aggregated short position disclosure regime to national regulators; support for new policies to reduce settlement failure - including in the area of naked short-selling; support for an FSA-based global manager-authorisation and supervision template; and for unified global standards for the industry. These standards would be based on the convergence of existing industry standards work, such as that by AIMA, the Hedge Fund Standards Board (HFSB), the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) and the Managed Funds Association (MFA).

Members of AIMA manage more than three quarters of hedge fund assets globally, with 1,200 member firms across 43 countries.

- Pensions Age February 2009

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