Funds Hub

There’s been plenty of confusion over who exactly will be hit by the ‘supertax’ on banker bonuses.

Myners spends a lot of time reading blogs. REUTERS/Paul Hackett.

The wording of the Treasury’s clampdown last week suggested some hedge funds and traditional asset managers could be caught — PwC’s John Terry told me that of the 20 hedge funds he had spoken to, around half may have been caught in the net.

However, hedge funds are to fall outside the supertax, confirming a rumour doing the rounds among hedge fund executives.

Speaking at Reuters’ London offices this morning, City minister Paul Myners clarified that the tax would be focused on “the activities of banking”.

This is of course a relief to managers. Many hedge funds are still below their high-water marks, but 2009 has nevertheless been a far, far better year than 2008 for hedge fund managers and is likely to be reflected in pay packets. (Crispin Odey has already pocketed a reported 30.4 mln stg after some shrewd calls on the market and the banking sector).

And today we speculate on whether this will cause an exodus from banks to hedge funds.

* We wonder if Paul Myners himself may fancy posting a comment on Hedge Hub? This morning he told the audience at Reuters’ offices: “My office complains I spend too much time looking at blogs. But very interesting things are happening on online commentaries.” We wait with bated breath…