Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
The Hill – Venture capitalists breathed a collective sigh of relief Thursday when a proposal from the House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee did not seek to treat them like private equity firms or hedge funds.
Venture capital investors had been lobbying against such a measure, saying that being required to register with the Securitiesand Exchange Commission like hedge funds and other private pools of money was unnecessary and expensive.
Nasdaq – A key U.S. House lawmaker on Thursday unveiled draft proposals to bolster the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s powers, to federally regulate hedge funds and to establish a federal insurance office.
The three drafts are the latest to be circulated by House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee Chairman Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., who is among the lawmakers playing a major role in working to enact broad new regulations for the financial sector. Last week he unveiled a controversial bill which would make it easier to sue credit-rating firms in an effort to hold them more accountable for the quality of their ratings.
Reuters – Switzerland knocked the United States off the position as the world’s most competitive economy as the crash of the U.S. banking system left it more exposed to some long-standing weaknesses, a report said on Tuesday.
The World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness report 2009/2010 showed economies with a large focus on financial services such as the U.S., Britain or Iceland were the losers of the crisis.
The U.S. as the world’s largest economy lost last year’s strong lead, slipping to number two for the first time since the introduction of the index in its current form in 2004.
Forbes – Britain’s financial regulator on Wednesday banned guaranteed banker bonuses of more than one year, as it leads a global crackdown on a culture of excessive risk-taking that has destabilised economies.
The Financial Services Athourity (FSA), which has been slammed for failing to address problems that led to the near collapse of the financial system last October, also said two thirds of bankers’ bonuses should be spread over three years to discourage short-term decision-making.
The Australian – The move wades the US into a fierce battle between the UK and other parts of Europe over how tough regulation should be. Some nations, led by Germany and France, are calling for wholesale regulation of financial services in the wake of last fall’s crisis, but the UK says that overly stringent rules would damage its large financial sector and close off US and other funds to European investors.
The US and UK are lining up to change the European Union’s proposed Alternative Investment Funds Directive, a sweeping bid to overhaul regulation of hedge funds, private equity and other alternative investment funds.
eFinancialCareers UK – Times are still not good for junior quants and mathematical PhDs who aspire to work in investment banks. With banks pulling back from complexity, there’s less need for their talents.
Mark Davis, a professor of maths at Imperial College, says lots of his students still want to work in finance, but they’re also being forced to contemplate defence, pharmaceutical work, and the consultancy branches of accountancy firms.
One recruiter says quants who can’t get into financial services are also to be found in “systematic gambling” at the likes of Betfair and Ladbrokes, where they analyze data in the same way hedge funds do.
EurActiv.com – The European Commission’s draft directive on hedge fund regulation is potentially ambiguous and needs to be rewritten, an industry body said on Friday (22 May).
"The particular problem with the draft directive [...] is that it is written in such an unclear way that it is open to ambiguous interpretation," said the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA).
"Implementation in its current form could prove to be unworkable. It also appears to be in conflict with existing financial services directives," said AIMA, which represents more than 1,200 hedge fund firms worldwide.
Telegraph.co.uk – When Andy Hornby, the former chief executive of HBOS, was asked by the Treasury Select Committee to detail his banking qualifications he couldn’t. Like his fellow bankers, Sir Fred Goodwin, Sir Tom McKillop and Lord Stevenson, being questioned by the panel, Mr Hornby, had to admit publicly that he held no formal banking qualifications. However unlike his fellow bankers, Mr Hornby’s admission held one important qualification.
"I have an MBA from Harvard," he told the MPs, "where I specialised in all the finance courses including financial services."
With the question about qualifications almost certain to come up, Mr Hornby’s answer was almost certainly prepared. By referring not just to his MBA, but also to where he got it from, Mr Hornby knew he was putting himself firmly at the front of the pedagogical pecking order. Harvard prides itself on consistently being the highest-ranked university; Mr Hornby no doubt prides himself on being the highest-achieving student out of his year, coming top out of 800 peers.
Reuters India- CQS has hired former Barclays Capital managing director David Kilgore as its head of trading in Hong Kong, part of a broader push by the $9.6 billion (4.9 billion pound) UK hedge fund manager to expand its presence in high-growth Asia.
CQS, a specialist in convertible bond arbitrage, is looking at further expanding its 20-person Hong Kong office and the launch of additional Asia-focused hedge funds is possible, CQS director Brian Pohli said on Tuesday.
"There are a number of different businesses we can bolt on here. But it depends on the skill set of the folks available and the complementary nature of the fit into our existing platform," he told Reuters in an interview at the firm’s Hong Kong office.
