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Alternative Investments: CAIA Level I is designed as the primary reading resource for the Level I exam of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association's Charter program, as well as a textbook for university courses and a resource for alternative investment professionals. This book is a thrice-revised edition of Mark Anson's Handbook of Alternative Assets and represents another milestone in our efforts to continuously improve and update the CAIA curriculum. To ensure that the material best reflects up-to-date practices in the area of alternative investments, the CAIA Association invited a group of leading industry professionals to contribute to the production of the series, covering core areas of alternative investments: real assets, hedge funds, private equity, and structured products.

Foundation

Since its inception in 2002, the CAIA Association has striven to be the leader in alternative investment education worldwide, and to be the catalyst for the best education in the field wherever it lies. The CAIA program was established with the help of a core group of faculty and industry experts who were associated with the University of Massachusetts and the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). From the beginning, the CAIA Association recognized that a meaningful portion of its curriculum must be devoted to codes of conduct and ethical behavior in the investment profession. To this end, with the permission and cooperation of the CFA Institute, we have incorporated its Code of Ethics and its Standards of Practice Handbook into our curriculum. Further, we have leveraged the experience and contributions of our members and other alternative investment professionals who serve on our board and committees to create and update the CAIA Association program's curriculum and its associated readings.

The quality, rigor, and relevance of our curriculum readings derive from the ideals upon which the CAIA Association was based. The CAIA program offered its first Level I examination in February 2003. Our first class consisted of 43 dedicated investment professionals who passed the Level I and Level II exams and met the other requirements of membership. Many of these founding members were instrumental in establishing the CAIA designation as the global mark of excellence in alternative investment education. Through their support and with the help of the founding cosponsors – the AIMA and the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets (CISDM) – the CAIA Association is now firmly established as the most comprehensive and credible designation in the rapidly growing sphere of alternative investments.

The AIMA is the hedge fund industry's global, not-for-profit trade association, with over 1,500 corporate members worldwide. Members include leading hedge fund managers, fund of hedge funds managers, prime brokers, legal and accounting services, and fund administrators, all of whom benefit from the AIMA's active influence in policy development; its leadership in industry initiatives, including education and sound practice manuals; and its excellent reputation with regulators.

The CISDM of the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, seeks to enhance the understanding of the field of alternative investments through research, education, and networking opportunities for member donors, industry professionals, and academics.

The CAIA Association has experienced rapid growth in its membership over the past 13 years. It is now a truly global professional organization, with over 7,000 members in over 80 countries. We strive to stay nimble in our process so that curriculum remains relevant and keeps pace with the constant changes in this dynamic industry.

Benefits

Although the CAIA Association's origins are largely based in the efforts of professionals in the hedge fund and managed futures space, these founders correctly identified a void in the wider understanding of alternative investments as a whole. From the beginning, the CAIA curriculum has also covered private equity, commodities, and real assets, always with an eye toward shifts in the industry. Today, several hundred CAIA members identify their main area of expertise as real estate or private equity, and several hundred more are from family offices, pension funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, which allocate across multiple classes within the alternative investment industry. To ensure benefit to the widest spectrum of members, we have developed curriculum subcommittees that represent each area of coverage within the curriculum. Alternative investment areas and products share some distinct features, such as the relative freedom on the part of investment managers to act in the best interests of their investors, alignment of interests between asset owners and asset managers, and relative illiquidity of the investment positions of some investment products. These characteristics necessitate conceptual and actual modifications to the standard investment performance analysis and decision-making paradigms.

Our curriculum readings are designed with two goals in mind. First, to provide readers with the tools needed to solve problems they encounter in performing their professional duties. Second, to provide them with a conceptual framework that is essential for investment professionals who strive to keep up with new developments in the alternative investment industry.

Readers will find the publications in our series to be beneficial, whether from the standpoint of allocating to new asset classes and strategies in order to gain broader diversification or from the standpoint of a specialist needing to better understand the competing options available to sophisticated investors globally. In both cases, readers will be better equipped to serve their clients' needs.

The CAIA Programs and the CAIA Alternative Investment Analyst Series

The CAIA Level I required readings are contained in this one text, supplemented only by the CFA Institute's Standards of Practice Handbook. Level I candidates are assumed to have mastered some knowledge of financial markets, securities pricing, and derivatives markets in advance of commencing studies for the Level I exam.

Many resources are freely available on our website (caia.org). We will continue to update the CAIA Level I Study Guide every six months (each exam cycle). The study guide outlines all of the readings and corresponding learning objectives (LOs) that candidates are responsible for meeting. The guide also contains important information for candidates regarding the use of LOs, testing policies, topic weightings, where to find and report errata, and much more. The entire exam process is outlined in the CAIA Candidate Handbook, which is available at caia.org. Candidates can also access a workbook that solves the problems presented at the end of each chapter and other important study aids.

We believe you will find this series to be the most comprehensive, rigorous, and globally relevant source of educational material available within the field of alternative investments.

Donald R. Chambers, PhD, CAIA

Associate Director of Curriculum

CAIA Association

March 2015