SBAI's Abu Dhabi forum for alternative investment standards, governance, and LP-GP dialogue in the GCC.
The SBAI Middle East Forum is a one-day institutional forum organised by the Standards Board for Alternative Investments, held annually at the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) on Al Maryah Island. It brings together alternative investment managers, institutional allocators, and sovereign investors to discuss best-practice standards, governance frameworks, and topical investment themes across hedge funds, private markets, and multi-asset alternatives. Abu Dhabi serves as its natural home given ADIA's scale and the ADGM's role as a regional regulatory anchor for institutional fund activity.
The Standards Board for Alternative Investments was founded in January 2008 as the Hedge Fund Standards Board, created in the wake of the global financial crisis to establish voluntary best-practice frameworks for the hedge fund industry. It rebranded to SBAI in September 2017, reflecting the industry's expansion beyond traditional hedge funds into liquid alternatives, regulated funds, managed accounts, private credit, and other asset classes.
SBAI operates as a global alliance of approximately 200 alternative investment managers and institutional investors, representing a combined $3 trillion in assets under management. Managers commit to the SBAI Alternative Investment Standards on a comply-or-explain basis; institutional investors participate as Investor Chapter Members. The Standards cover disclosure, valuation, risk management, governance, and shareholder conduct. The SBAI Toolbox provides practical frameworks including SPARK (for emerging managers), the Open Protocol for standardised reporting, and templates for valuation and expense reporting.
The Middle East Forum reflects the growing importance of GCC sovereign and institutional investors in the global alternatives allocation chain. Entities such as ADIA, Mubadala, and a range of regional family offices and pension funds are either SBAI signatories or active counterparties to SBAI-signatory managers. Hosting the forum at ADGM gives it regulatory credibility and positions it as a neutral venue for standards dialogue between global managers and regional allocators.
Delegates divide into three groups. The first is SBAI signatory managers: hedge fund managers, private credit funds, and multi-strategy alternatives firms that have adopted the SBAI Standards and send portfolio managers, COOs, and risk officers. The second is institutional LP members: sovereign wealth funds, public pension funds, endowments, and large family offices based in the GCC and internationally that allocate to alternatives. The third is a smaller contingent of service providers (legal, audit, prime brokerage) relevant to the governance and operational due diligence agenda. The 200-delegate ceiling creates a deliberately contained environment.
The 2026 edition organised its sessions around six thematic blocks. Private markets examined secondaries, private credit, and asset-based lending. AI applications explored use cases for alpha generation and operational efficiency in alternative asset management. Alternatives allocation addressed capital efficiency, separately managed accounts, and co-investments. A keynote on macro integration covered incorporating macroeconomic insights into portfolio construction. A second keynote addressed asset allocation using machine learning. An organisational design panel examined how investment teams should prepare for coming structural shifts.
Speakers at the 2026 edition included Jane Buchan (SBAI Chair; CEO, Martlet Asset Management), Stuart Fiertz (SBAI Trustee; Co-Founder, Cheyne Capital Management), Dr. Jamil Baz (MD, PIMCO), and Mark Carhart (CIO, Kepos Capital), alongside leadership from BlackRock, Winton, and Graham Capital Management.
SBAI is a non-profit standards body incorporated in London and headquartered at Somerset House. It acts as custodian of the Alternative Investment Standards: a voluntary, comply-or-explain framework covering disclosure, valuation, risk management, and governance for alternative fund managers. Forums serve a dual purpose: they give SBAI signatories a venue to engage on how standards should evolve, and they give institutional investors a structured setting to benchmark their due diligence expectations against peers and against managers.
Attendance is primarily directed at SBAI signatory managers and Investor Chapter Members, but the event is not formally closed to non-members. The programme and audience composition are calibrated to those already operating within or evaluating the SBAI framework. Prospective signatories with a serious interest in standards adoption would be appropriate attendees; generalist commercial conferences on the regional alternatives circuit are a better fit for those primarily seeking deal introductions.
SBAI's origins are in hedge funds, but the 2017 rebrand formalised its expanded scope across the alternatives universe: liquid alternatives, private credit, regulated funds, managed accounts, and increasingly private markets. The 2026 forum's private markets session on secondaries and asset-based lending reflects this trajectory. Full convergence with private equity operational standards is ongoing rather than complete.
If your primary objective is meeting GPs for fundraising introductions, or if your institution does not allocate to alternatives, this forum is not a natural fit. It is a governance and standards-focused programme, not a deal-making or placement platform. Those seeking broad coverage of the GCC alternatives circuit would complement it with AIMA's Middle East Forum or regional LP-GP summit formats.
The Standards Board for Alternative Investments is an independent non-profit standards organisation governed by a board of institutional investors and alternative investment managers. It is based in London and operates globally, with forums in North America, the Nordics, and the Middle East. Its membership model distinguishes it from trade associations: managers are signatories committing to standards compliance, while institutional investors participate as a separate chapter with a voice in how those standards develop. The current board includes representatives from CPP Investments, Future Fund, Blackstone, and Orchard Global.
SBAI's events are deliberately not commercial conferences. They are structured as working sessions where standards adoption, governance challenges, and market developments are discussed by practitioners who have a shared stake in the quality of the alternatives industry's operating framework.
For operational due diligence officers, CIOs allocating to hedge funds or private credit, and GCC institutional investors building or reviewing their alternatives frameworks, this forum offers a signal-to-noise ratio that commercial conferences rarely match. It is niche by design. Those who find value in the SBAI Toolbox and its comply-or-explain standards will find the programme directly applicable; those who do not will find it dense and narrow.
Booking for the 2026 edition closed after the event (February 9, 2026). Registration is coordinated directly through SBAI and is primarily open to SBAI signatory managers and Investor Chapter Members. Pricing is not disclosed publicly on the event page. To register for future editions, contact SBAI via the official events page or through membership channels. Non-members interested in attending should initiate contact with SBAI to discuss eligibility.
The event is primarily member-directed. Non-members with a genuine interest in the SBAI framework, including prospective signatories, may be accommodated, but attendance is not open-access. Contact SBAI directly to confirm eligibility for future editions.
The 2026 forum was held at the ADGM Authorities Building, ADGM Square, Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi (PO Box 111999). The Abu Dhabi Global Market is the UAE's international financial centre and free zone, located on Al Maryah Island in central Abu Dhabi. The venue is accessible by taxi and rideshare from the main hotel districts.
| Official website | https://www.sbai.org/events/2026-middle-east-forum.html |
| SBAI events page | https://www.sbai.org/events.html |
| SBAI homepage | https://www.sbai.org/ |
| Register | Contact via official website (member-directed access) |