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EurActiv.com – A draft EU proposal to regulate hedge funds and private equity, due to be unveiled next week, was criticised for being too weak by Socialist leaders, who branded the text a "major political mistake" ahead of European elections in June.
The main issue raised by the Socialists was that the proposed regulation will only apply to fund managers, rather than to the funds themselves, creating a loophole in the system.
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea will allow mutual savings firms and online-based companies to sell investment funds from next February, and draw up measures to cut sales fees for long-term investors, a regulator said on Sunday.
The Financial Services Commission FSC.L said in a statement that it will also tighten investor protection rules for fund sellers to teach customers risks from an investment, as well as its commissions and fees.
"South Korea’s fund sales market has been in the oligopolistic structure, which lacked competition for services and commissions between sellers," the statement said.
Currently, only banks, securities houses and insurance companies are authorised to sell investment funds which accounted for nearly 10 percent of the country’s household financial assets in 2007.
Independent- The man who made a personal $3.7bn (£1.85bn) fortune by predicting the credit crisis is hoping to make another killing by helping to prop up financial companies brought to the brink of ruin by the chaos in the debt markets.
John Paulson, who went from being an obscure Manhattan hedge fund manager to one of the financial world’s hottest properties last year, is raising a new fund that will invest in banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions as they rebuild their battered balance sheets.
Financial companies have written off more than $460bn since the collapse in the debt markets began last summer, and Mr Paulson believes that is barely one-third of the final total that will be lost. At a conference in Monaco last month, he said writedowns could ultimately reach $1.3 trillion.
Bloomberg- Whenever pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies decide they should own dollar assets that are out of favor with hedge funds, the hedge funds lose.
Institutional investors bought more dollars than they’ve sold this year, according to State Street Corp. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the largest money managers for institutions. That’s significant because speculators such as hedge funds raised bets against the greenback by 36 percent, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington show.
History indicates institutional investors may be on to something. The dollar gained in 71 percent of the quarters over the past decade when they were net buyers, according to Boston- based State Street.
