The inaugural Alternative Investment Management Association (Australian chapter) award for an article which best promotes the merits of Australian hedge funds has been won by a Mercer Investment Consulting principal, Harry Liem.

Liem received a cheque for $9,000 from the association’s chair, Kim Ivey, at an AIMA lunch in Sydney in April. His article is reprinted below.

A second prize, for innovation, went to an MBA student who is working with Rick Steele at TechInvest, David Urquhart. He received $1,000 for a classic comic-book style of work discussing hedge funds.

Ivey said at the lunch that the aim of the competition was to raise the awareness of Australian hedge funds among investors. Liem’s article “hit all the buttons talking about the hedge fund industry,” he said. He said the competition would be run again next year, although entrants would be required to write longer pieces (300-400 words was suggested this year).

The competition was put together by AIMA’s education committee, chaired by consultant Jon Glass. He, Ivey and Greg Bright, publisher of this magazine, made up the judging panel. Ivey also said that AIMA had produced an educative booklet with Zenith research which would be released within the next month and had updated a survey of super fund trustees’ views on hedge funds.

The survey, originally conducted in 2006, was done with the help of the University of NSW. “It says what they like and don’t like (about hedge funds)… The (latest) results will be very interesting,” Ivey said.