Times Online – They must think it’s Christmas in Geneva. Alistair Darling delivered an early present last week by slapping a 50 per cent tax rate on top earners.

Highly paid but footloose financiers are now betting when the rate will go up to 60 or 70 per cent and are digging out those brochures from the Swiss inward investment agency.

As if that wasn’t enough, here come our friends at the European Commission with proposals for the regulation of hedge funds and private equity funds.

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Tags: alistair-darling, brochures, christmas, european commission, financiers, geneva, investment agency, inward investment, private-equity-funds, proposals, tax-rate, top earners

Sydney Morning Herald – The Westpac-controlled BT Investment Management delivered grim season’s greetings to retail investors when it froze withdrawals from a $1.2 billion fund days before Christmas.

The funds manager suspended all redemptions from its Global Return Fund, which has invested in international hedge funds since 2001 and into which investors have each poured a minimum $50,000.

"BT Investment Management has decided to suspend redemptions from the fund … as we believe, because of unstable market conditions, assets cannot be realised at prices that would be obtained in a stable market," Dirk Morris, the chief executive of BT Investment Management, wrote to investors. "At this point, we are unable to ascertain when the suspension will be lifted."

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Tags: assets, chief-executive, christmas, days before christmas, dirk, greetings, hellip, investment-management, morning-herald, redemptions, retail investors, stable market, sydney-morning-herald, unstable market, westpac, withdrawals