The primary objectives of the proposed BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Center at SMU are to conduct and disseminate high quality academic Hedge Fund research, educate finance practitioners and the investor public on Hedge Funds, and raise the profile of the Hedge Funds Industry in Asia and Singapore . Specifically, the Center will organize annual conferences, conduct an annual 3-day Hedge Fund Executive Training Program, and produce a Hedge Fund Statistical Digest (henceforth Digest), in addition to undertaking research in the Hedge Fund area.

The annual conferences will bring together the best minds from the academia and the regional Hedge Fund practitioner community. The practitioners and academics will offer and debate their unique view points on issues relevant and peculiar to Hedge Funds. The close interaction between academics and Hedge Fund practitioners will differentiate the Center's conferences from other hedge fund conferences.

The annual 3-day Hedge Fund Executive Training program will be structured like the Hedge Fund Training program in the London Business School . It will be taught by renowned professors from the London Business School and faculty from the Singapore Management University and seeks to educate the investor public and finance practitioners on issues such as Hedge Fund risks, investment strategies, and performance.

The Digest aims to provide an academic research forum where updates to important empirical results are published. The secondary objective of the Digest is to analyze misleading results in the literature to help researchers avoid pitfalls, and to clarify for consumers of research potential misleading folklores about Hedge Fund performance statistics. The semi-annual Digest will be produced from performance data published by several commercial hedge Fund databases.

Underlying all these efforts will be the conduct of independent and high quality academic research by the Center's director in collaboration with the Center at LBS. The research aims to further the finance profession's understanding of Hedge Fund strategies, risks, performance characteristics, etc. The research will leverage off the data collection part of the Digest's production process. Target journals for such research include top academic and practitioner journals such as the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Financial Analyst Journal. Prior to publication, these research papers will be shared with the industry via breakfast and lunch forums.

To achieve these goals, the Center will collaborate closely with the BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Center at LBS. Moreover, at all times, the Center is absolutely committed to the highest ethical conduct and will actively avoid any conflicts of interest with outside parties.