BBC – In much of continental Europe, there’s a widespread belief that hedge funds and private equity firms caused the global economic crisis.

Which is presumably one reason why the European Commission wants much tighter regulation of both the hedgies and the buyout boys.

I’ve had personal experience of this, in a recent interview for French telly on how to prevent a repetition of the disaster: more-or-less all my interlocutor wanted to discuss was the alleged imperative of constraining the activities of hedge funds; there wasn’t even a nod at the reality that far more of the real culprits were in the banks, including French banks.

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Tags: bbc, belief-that, continental europe, culprits, disaster, european commission, french banks, global economic crisis, hedgies, imperative, interlocutor, nod, personal experience, private equity firms, repetition, telly

Reuters – Societe Generale and Credit Agricole have signed a preliminary agreement to merge their asset management arms and create a top 10 global player, the French banks said on Monday.

The new company will be 70 percent owned by Agricole and 30 percent owned by SocGen.

According to proforma figures from September 30, 2008, the new entity would have 638 billion euros ($826.5 billion) of assets under management. It would have revenues of 1.8 billion euros and an operating profit of 900 million euros.

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Tags: asset-management, assets-under-management, credit agricole, french banks, global player, management arms, operating profit, preliminary agreement, reuters, socgen, societe generale