AIMA, the ACC, and what they represent
The Alternative Investment Management Association was founded in London in 1990 and is now the principal global trade body for hedge funds, private credit managers, and other alternative investment firms. It has around 2,100 corporate members across every major jurisdiction and is headquartered in London with offices across the major financial centres. Its CEO is Jack Inglis and its Deputy CEO and Global Head of Government Affairs is Jiří Król — both of whom have been publicly active in the private credit regulatory debate for more than a decade.
In 2014, AIMA formed the Alternative Credit Council (ACC) as its dedicated private credit division. The ACC now represents the large majority of the institutional private credit manager universe and is the body through which AIMA engages with supervisors and standard-setters on private debt specifically. Nicholas Smith, Managing Director for Private Credit at AIMA, leads much of the technical work.
Financing the Economy: the flagship research series
The ACC's best-known publication is the annual Financing the Economy report. First issued in 2015, it has become the most widely cited buy-side survey of the private credit market, covering AUM and dry powder, deployment patterns, investor composition, sector exposures, and emerging regulatory issues. The most recent edition at the time of writing is Financing the Economy 2025, published in December 2025 in partnership with Houlihan Lokey, which puts global private credit AUM at approximately US$3.5 trillion and reports capital deployment in 2024 of around US$592.8 billion (up roughly 78 percent on 2023 deployment volumes). Earlier editions tracked the asset class through its growth from sub-$500bn through the $1 trillion mark.
For valuation practitioners the usefulness of the series lies less in the headline AUM numbers than in the operational data: what proportion of managers use independent third-party valuation agents, at what frequency NAVs are struck, how gates and redemption mechanics are structured, and how ESG and default data are collected. These are the inputs a due diligence team actually uses when benchmarking a manager's operating practices.
The Guide to Sound Practices documents
AIMA's other major contribution to the valuation conversation is its Guide to Sound Practices series. The "AIMA Guide to Sound Practices for Private Credit Managers" covers valuation, risk management, operational infrastructure, and reporting. A separate "Sound Practices for Hedge Fund Valuation" document predates it but remains the template for the valuation-specific chapters. These are not binding standards — AIMA has no enforcement authority — but they are widely treated as the industry benchmark for what "good" looks like.
On valuation specifically, the ACC's published position endorses a familiar set of principles: use of an independent third-party pricing agent or an independently chaired valuation committee; quarterly mark validation at minimum; documented methodology for unobservable inputs; clear escalation procedures for stressed positions; and full disclosure of valuation policy to LPs. The principles align closely with IOSCO's 2023 Thematic Analysis on Emerging Risks in Private Finance and with the IVSC's IVS 500, which is part of why they are broadly accepted by auditors.
Regulatory engagement: SEC, ESMA, FSB, Bank of England
The ACC is the primary conduit through which the private credit industry engages with regulators. It has made public submissions to the SEC on the Private Fund Adviser rule, to ESMA on the AIFMD II review, to the Financial Stability Board on its private credit consultations, and to the Bank of England Financial Policy Committee on its requests for information on private credit. These submissions are published and represent the most detailed industry-side analysis of the regulatory conversation.
The substantive positions tend to cluster in predictable places. On valuation and disclosure, the ACC is broadly supportive of the direction of regulatory travel — independent pricing, systematic documentation, sensitivity disclosure — because it reflects what most institutional managers already do. On leverage and systemic risk, the ACC has been more pushful, arguing that the closed-end fund structure of most private credit vehicles, the typical absence of demand-based redemption rights, and the long-dated liability profile of the LP base mean that the systemic risk concerns raised by some central banks are overstated.
Where industry and regulator views diverge
It is worth being candid about the tensions. Regulators — in particular the Bank of England and the FSB — have over the past two years signalled concern about the interconnections between private credit, bank lending, and insurer balance sheets. The ACC has engaged constructively but has pushed back on the framing that private credit is a materially greater source of systemic risk than the bank-held equivalent. On retail access — the question of whether and how private credit should be made available to non-institutional investors through BDCs, interval funds, ELTIFs and LTAFs — industry and regulator positions are not aligned, though they are also not radically opposed.
On valuation specifically, however, the alignment is generally high. The ACC's endorsement of independent pricing and documented unobservable inputs broadly matches the IOSCO direction, the IVSC IVS 500 framework, and SEC expectations under the Advisers Act. Managers that align with AIMA Sound Practices and document their methodology consistently are, in our experience, less likely to encounter friction with their primary regulator on valuation — though regulatory expectations are jurisdiction-specific and continue to evolve, so this is not a substitute for direct engagement with counsel and the relevant supervisor.
Complementary, not competing, with LP-side standards
AIMA operates on the GP side of the market. The principal LP-side counterpart is the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), whose reporting templates and fee standards shape the quarterly LP report rather than the underlying valuation methodology. The two sets of output are designed to be complementary: AIMA on how the manager operates, ILPA on what the manager reports. A robust valuation infrastructure feeds both — the same versioned mark that underpins the AIMA-aligned valuation policy populates the ILPA-aligned quarterly report.
For managers building out their valuation function, the practical implication is that AIMA Sound Practices, IVSC IVS 500, IFRS 13, IOSCO's 2023 Thematic Analysis on Emerging Risks in Private Finance and ILPA reporting templates are not five competing frameworks but five views of the same underlying discipline. A platform that produces reproducible, versioned, sensitivity-tested valuations with documented input lineage is well placed to support each of them, even though formal compliance with any individual framework still depends on the manager's own policy, governance and external attestation. The industry has converged on this direction — and AIMA's ongoing work through the ACC is one of the main reasons it has converged without heavy-handed regulatory intervention.
References & Further Reading
- AIMA — Alternative Investment Management AssociationAIMA
- Alternative Credit Council (ACC)AIMA / ACC
- Financing the Economy 2025 — ACC press release (US$3.5 trillion AUM)AIMA / ACC
- Financing the Economy (annual series)AIMA / ACC
- AIMA Guide to Sound Practices for Private Credit ManagersAIMA
- IOSCO — Thematic Analysis: Emerging Risks in Private Finance (Final Report, September 2023)IOSCO
- Bank of England — Financial Policy Committee publicationsBank of England
- ILPA Reporting TemplateILPA
Editorial note. Insights are written and edited by the markst team. We do not publish individual bylines on general-audience articles — named authorship is reserved for technical whitepapers, methodology releases, and content where accountability attaches to a specific contributor. Articles describe analytical positions; they are not investment advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation.