Bundesverband Alternative Investments e.V.
BAI
Bundesverband Alternative Investments e.
ID: 218219812319-84
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Martin Merlin (Director Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union)
19 Nov 2025 · SIU
5 Sept 2025
The German lobby association for Alternative Investment (BAI) welcomes the opportunity to respond to this consultation paper on amendments on the Solvency II Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/35. Representing more than 300 national and international members (asset manager, AIFMs, banks, service providers, etc.) active in the institutional alternative investments sector (i.a. infrastructure, private equity, private debt, liquid alternatives) our responses primarily focus on the amendments proposed with regard to Art. 171a and we would welcome various improvements regarding methodology and usage of the LTE module.
Read full responseResponse to Savings and Investments Union
7 Mar 2025
The German Alternative Investments Association (Bundesverband Alternative Investments e.V,. BAI) welcomes the opportunity to respond to this call for evidence on the SIU. As an industry association we represent more than 300 national and international members active in the institutional alternative investments sector (i.a. infrastructure, private equity, private debt, liquid alternatives), representing the entire value chain (asset manager, funds, banks, service providers, etc.). Likewise institutional investors (insurance companies, pension funds, occupational pension schemes, etc.) are represented in our investor board so that our activities have a dedicated focus on the asset owner side and their investment topics and needs as well. As a preliminary remeark, we have to affirm that so far the CMU hasnt been the great success the EU was waiting and hoping for. It was and is more than urgent to revitalize the CMU as clearly stated as well in the report Developing European capital markets to finance the future by the expert group chaired by Christian Noyer. Especially in the last years there has been an avalanche of regulation in the financial sector and appears that national, but also European legislators did not recognise that we need focussed and enabling regulation rather than all-embracing and therby often bureaucratic and in consequence prohibiting regulation. Regarding this call for evidence we would like to stress that we support the measures proposed in this report, which to our understanding - are also at least partially - the basis for the new SIU initiative and therefore at least partially match with the measures listed in this call for evidence. However, they are by far not targetted enough and they will not lead to a focussed and efficient regulation. As this call for evidence was quite short-termed we can submit right now only inital comments and ideas how to boost the SIU.
Read full responseResponse to European Sustainability Reporting Standards
7 Jul 2023
We ask the EU Commission for amendments that follow the following guidelines: 1. The ESRS should be guided by the draft EFRAG draft in terms of more mandatory data points, compared to only optionals. 2. Especially data points that are mandatory to report for the financial sector, such as in particular the PAIs according to the SFDR, should also be mandatory to report for companies in the real economy according to the CSRD/ESRS. This is very important for coherent regulation and overall coherence within the European Unions sustainable finance framework. 3. The materiality analysis should at least be reconsidered or abolished for all areas that are subject to mandatory reporting under the SFDR. Data points that are mandatory as PAIs under the SFDR should at least be subject to a materiality analysis in so far as the company has to explain the non-materiality.
Read full responseMeeting with Florian Denis (Cabinet of Commissioner Mairead Mcguinness)
8 Apr 2021 · AIFMD review
Response to Directive/regulation establishing a European framework for markets in crypto assets
11 Jan 2021
Regarding digitization we support legislative initiatives as the Digital Finance Package on EU level or the introduction of electronic and crypto securities (eWpG) on German national level for various reasons. On the one hand blockchain / DLT will have significantly impact the entire asset management industry and the related value chain. All areas, starting with the front office (e.g. transaction execution), middle office (e.g. settlement), and back office (e.g. accounting, valuation, collateral management), through sales and legal & compliance to risk management (e.g. liquidity management) and reporting (for supervisory, investor, tax purposes, etc.), will be affected by this technological change. On the other hand digital / crypto assets will be one of the most relevant investment themes in the future: traditional assets will be tokenized, new types of digital assets will be created. In other words: it is not just the portfolio and the infrastructure that is going digital, but the asset manager and the funds as well!
Read full responseResponse to Alternative Investment Fund Managers – review of EU rules
7 Jan 2021
The „Bundesverband Alternative Investments e.V. (BAI)“, the asset class- and product-spanning representation of interest for Alternative Investments in Germany with more than 240 members, welcomes the opportunity to comment on this Inception Impact Assessment.
As the EU Commission itself does, BAI shares the view that the impact of the AIFMD on AIFMs and AIFs has been largely positive with the AIFMD playing an important role in creating an internal market for both AIFMs and AIFs and reinforcing the regulatory and supervisory framework for AIFMs within the EU. All this based on a convincing regulatory approach that takes into account the diversity of the alternative investment industry as well as the variety of investment strategies in the AI universe: The regulation of the managers of AIFs by imposing rules on authorization, liquidity management, risk management, use of leverage, supplemented by many rules with regard to investor protection, and with a focus on professional and institutional investors.
Concerning the problems listed by the EU Commission that it aims to tackle by the proposal of a Directive amending the AIFMD, with the very positive practical experience and evidence since its adoption and in light of the necessity to quickly recover from the current economic situation due to the pandemic, BAI would like to highlight the following points:
• The AIFMD is one of the founding but also one of the best functioning pillars of EU’s Capital Market Union. The AIFMD should therefore not be amended without any good reason and in a long enduring (and political) process under the current circumstances and economic situation. Asset classes like private equity or private debt are needed by SMEs to get new financings and capital, asset classes like infrastructure and real estate (and, again, private credit/debt) are essential for a greener and more digitalized European economy. We strongly plea for soft-law measures such as ESMA’s interpretive communications, Guidelines or Q&A instead of amending the AIFMD. So, although we would support a passport for sub-threshold AIFMs and depositaries in principle, amending and re-opening the existing regulatory framework on level 1 is a too high price.
• We strongly advocate upholding the previous principle of managerial regulation and not introducing any product regulation or common rules (additionally to the existing ones like leverage) for loan originating or direct lending AIFs and AIFMs. Direct lending funds are highly welcome and needed by SMEs in times of recovery, restructuring enterprises and when banks are increasingly withdrawing from credit financing due to regulatory burdens. Our own BAI study on “Corporate loan financing by non-banks in Germany“ from 2019 showed that loan originating funds are necessary, flexible and well-regulated on national level, and they did not cause any (systemic) risks during the market turbulences in springtime 2020. If ever, the regulatory framework for loan originating funds should be improved within the regulation of ELTIFs, which already are product-regulated AIFs.
• The ongoing ELTIF review is a good opportunity to improve retail access to AIFs while not endangering the overall AIFMD framework. Recalling that the AIFMD is a framework that was designed for the professional investor universe; layering retail investor protections over the AIFMD requirements runs a very large risk of imposing requirements on relationships with professional investors that are neither needed nor desired.
• To avoid legal uncertainty and to not disturb the well-functioning ecosystem in the alternative investments area, which is highly specialized and internationally interwoven by competences, expertise and division of labor and functions, the EU Commission should not “clarify” well-established definitions such as delegation. From an investors perspective it is important to get the best experts in each function, wherever in the EU or in third countries they are located.
Read full responseResponse to Amendments to the implementing rules on solvency applicable to insurers
7 Dec 2018
Bundesverband Alternative Investments e.V. (BAI) is the cross-asset and cross-product advocacy association for the Alternative Investments industry in Germany. Our more than 200 member under-takings sponsor, manage, administrate or provide professional services for the entire range of open- and closed-ended domestic, EU and foreign alternative investment funds in the following segments: infrastructure, private equity, private debt, absolute return, multi asset, etc.
Our members and their institutional investor base (insurance companies, pension funds, occupational pension schemes, endowments, etc.) are directly and significantly affected by Solvency regulation and the current review.
BAI has been involved in the previous EIOPA consultation regarding the Solvency review and we wel-come this opportunity to submit now our further comments to the Commission.
Read full responseResponse to Review of the European Supervisory Authorities
23 Jan 2018
I. Executive summary
• BAI is opposed to direct supervision by ESMA over EuVECAs, EuSEFs and ELTIFs and thus rejects a transfer of competences from NCAs to ESMA for approval, admission and supervision of these AIFs. We consider it being a violation of Union law’s fundamental principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Furthermore, other European product-regulated investment funds like UCITS and AIFs are a success story while supervised by NCAs. There are no urgent reasons to grant more competences to ESMA and we fear that such empowerment could be a potential “gateway” to an ever-increasing expansion of competences while division of powers between administration and legislative becomes unclear, especially as ESMA is acting more and more as an extended workbench for the EU Commission. Finally safeguarding effective legal protection against ESMA measures is a major concern we have to raise.
• Instead of introducing direct ESMA competences on above-mentioned AIF vehicles/manager, BAI strongly advocates for direct ESMA competences with regard to third country manager/AIFs. The cross-border distribution of funds from third countries such as the US, Switzerland or the UK after a hard Brexit has to be notified or approved by the respective NCA for each target distribution country. Due to the large number of European jurisdictions and languages, this is extremely complex and requires significant recourses in terms of time and money. In our view, ESMA could play an important role in assessing and examining such cross-border obstacles, in collecting data and divergent national provisions, in surveying the manner the different NCAs handle the admission of the European AIFs and in preventing NCAs from gold plating.
• BAI strongly opposes direct and extensive funding by the industry and both the EU but also Member States/NCAs shall continue funding the ESAs. BAI only supports funding by the financial industry where the ESAs actually have direct supervisory powers. The tasks of the ESAs – being much more standard-setter than supervisory authority – represent the fulfilment of a public function. Accordingly, to ESA’s public function, their activities have to be performed and funded by public funds. Strong funding of the ESAs from EU funds and the EU budget also ensures an effective control of the use of these funds by the EU Parliament (budget right).
Read full responseMeeting with Reinhard Felke (Cabinet of Commissioner Pierre Moscovici)
30 Nov 2016 · exchange of views on investment needs in Europa and capital market union