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Reuters HK – Asian hedge fund managers are waiting with dread to see if tough new short selling restrictions sweep across the region after Australia and Taiwan joined U.S. and UK regulators in cracking down on the practice.

Major Asian markets, such as Japan and Hong Kong, have so far held their fire. But industry executives, many angry with the recent restrictions, said the combination of market volatility and politics makes the outcome impossible to predict.

"My fundamental view is that it is utterly idiotic. In the current market environment, the priority I would have thought would be to encourage liquidity," said Peter Douglas, founder of Singapore-based hedge fund consultancy GFIA.

"Most regulators that I’ve met have been fundamentally quite sensible people, so you have to make the assumption this is driven a mixture of politics and public opinion. And that makes it very difficult to predict the course."

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Reuters – LaSalle Investment Management has raised a $3 billion (1.64 billion pounds) "opportunity" fund for Asian property, saying it is interested in investing in Japan, China and South Korea.

The fund management unit of property services firm Jones Lang LaSalle said in a statement on Friday that the fund would use borrowing to boost its spending power to as much as $12 billion.

The company told Reuters in June that it expects assets under management in Asia to double in the next three years from about $11 billion now.

"Asia remains a key strategic priority for our business and we have a very active plan to grow our operations in the region," LaSalle’s managing director Philip Ling said in the statement.

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