May 16: US Senate Panel to Hold Hedge Fund Hearing

WEST PALM BEACH, FL (HEDGECO.NET) – The chairman of a Senate Banking subcommittee Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, said on Wednesday he plans to hold a hearing May 16th on the role that lightly regulated hedge funds play in the U.S. financial markets. Hagel is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee’s securities and investment subcommittee.

“That’s an area we haven’t paid enough attention to,” he said in an interview with Reuters. He did not specify if he believed further regulation of hedge funds by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was necessary. Earlier this year, the SEC began requiring hedge funds, which have typically released little information about their investment strategies, to register basic information with the agency.

The industry assets of the hedge fund market have doubled to more than $1 trillion in the past five years, and are expected to double again in the next two to four years, according to analysts. But they avoid some of the mainstream funding such as pensions because they would have to give more explanations to investors about how they manage money.