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.
Reuters – The worst of the global economic crisis is over, multi-billionaire financier George Soros told Polish news channel TVN24 on Sunday urging the creation of international regulations to oversee global markets.
"Decidedly the worst (of the crisis) is already behind us," said Soros, a 78-year-old Hungarian-born American with Jewish roots.
Reuters – Three former executives at JPMorgan Asset Management plan to launch a Greater China hedge fund via a start-up in Hong Kong, tapping rising investor demand for Asian equities amid the global financial crisis.
"Greater China may be the first region to recover from the global economic crisis, and will certainly attract global fund flows," Lu Jun, one of the co-founders said in a telephone interview. "I think it’s good timing to launch the new fund."
Lu, previously a star fund manager at JPMorgan’s China fund venture, has teamed up with Man Wing Chung, former head of JPMorgan’s Greater China team, and Joseph Tang, who focused on Taiwan investment, to co-found JTM Capital Partners. The partners will start running a hedge fund in mid-June.
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.
Independent – European leaders backed major reform of hedge funds yesterday as part of structural changes to help the world’s financial institutions emerge stronger from the global economic crisis.
Short-selling by the secretive hedge fund industry — selling borrowed stock in the anticipation that the prices will fall — was blamed by some politicians for exacerbating the banking crisis and economic meltdown.
A copy of the summary from the summit hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin said banks should bring in reforms to ensure they build up a buffer of resources in good times and called for sanctions against tax havens.