New Delhi, 21st October 2019: CAIA Association recently had a tour in India, during which it visited several colleges and institutes to promote education in alternative investments. For the first time, CAIA offered a scholarship to qualified students pursuing an MBA in India who are inclined to study investment in alternative assets. CAIA’s scholarship plan aims to encourage more students to enroll in this program and make their career in this dynamic segment of the market.
Hundreds of MBA students competed for the scholarships in renowned IIM at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, and the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) in New Delhi to enroll in the Charter Program. The program is designed to educate professionals on strategies related to investing in alternative asset classes. Students who competed for the scholarship were rewarded with either the flagship Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Charter scholarship or the Fundamentals of Alternative Investments (“Fundamentals”) scholarship. In addition, CAIA distributed 350 Alternate Investment Primers at IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, as well as at FMS and ISB. The Alternative Investment Primers, written by CAIA Association faculty and published by the CFA institute, contain a storehouse of knowledge on alternative investments.
Students availing scholarships will get sound insights into investing in alternative asset classes which include real estate, derivatives, commodities, venture capital, foreign currencies, distressed securities, and structured products. Earning the CAIA Charter offers in-depth, quality education and knowledge about the subject to the apprentices. Using such insights, they will learn to generate alpha where others, lacking such insights, may just pair to benchmark. The rapidly evolving global financial system demands professionals who know how to generate portfolio risk adjusted alpha by investing in alternative asset classes. It will groom students and make them industry-ready, allowing them to stand out from the crowd in front of the recruiters who are looking for skilled professionals who know how to invest in alternative assets. Traditionally, professionals awarded CAIA certifications have found greater success investing in alternative assets than those having MBAs and finance degrees.
CAIA Association’s programs are global benchmarks in the alternative asset space in over 95 countries. They are the only globally-recognized certification in institution-quality alternative assets. The CAIA scholarships were awarded after students were quantitatively assessed on their knowledge on the asset class and on global and local topics within the alternative asset class.
Speaking about the awarding of CAIA Charter and Fundamentals scholarships, Shreekant Daga, Associate Director for CAIA Association and a CAIA charterholder himself, said, “Some of the sharpest minds in the world study at the IIMs. They learn much about finance yet surprisingly little about the exciting investment opportunities in the alternative asset space. As a result, most companies in the alternative asset space when recruiting at premier institutes have no reliable metric to judge whether a candidate they hire can hit the ground running. The CAIA Charter and the Fundamentals certificate programs are such metrics. By awarding CAIA and Fundamentals scholarships, we offer the best minds in the country an opportunity to explore a career in the vast and untapped alternative asset space.”
