Times Online – Brevan Howard, the UK’s largest hedge fund, is planning to open an office in Switzerland, perhaps signalling the beginning of a mass exodus by financial groups from London.

The hedge fund, which has assets under management of close to $27 billion (£17 billion), has instructed property agents to find an office in the tax haven with capacity for at least 100 staff. It has narrowed the search to Geneva and the nearby Nyon.

In June, James Vernon, the firm’s chief operating officer, said that a proposed EU directive on hedge-fund regulation would make it “impossible” for it to do business in the UK.

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Tags: chief-operating-officer, financial groups, hedge fund, mass exodus

Independent – A new EU directive aimed at tightening up the regulation of hedge funds could be counter-productive and cause a mass exodus of business from the International Financial Services Centre, a Dail committee was told yesterday.

The directive, being prepared under the supervision of EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevey, has run into opposition from almost every EU country and is unlikely to be finalised before the end of the current Swedish presidency, the Dail Committee on European Scrutiny was told yesterday.

The draft Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive has been the subject of submissions from every EU member state, Colm Breslin of the Department of Finance told the committee.

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Tags: alternative investment, dail, department-of-finance, financial services centre, hedge funds, international financial services, investment fund managers, mass exodus, member state, opposition, scrutiny, submissions, supervision, swedish presidency