Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
Blowin’ in the wind
The timing of the Alternative Investment Management Association’s hedge fund disclosure initiative indicates just how strong the winds of change are blowing in hedge fund land.
Coming just a day after ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet called the credit crisis “a loud and clear call” for extending hedge fund regulation, the move shows the hedge fund industry feels it must be more active in deciding the future shape of regulation.
The move, which will include regular — probably quarterly – disclosure of systemically significant holdings and risk exposure to national regulators, goes further than that suggested at last month’s Treasury Select Committee by Marshall Wace chairman and Hedge Fund Standards Board trustee Paul Marshall, who had proposed aggregating data through prime brokers.
“The international agenda is starting to gallop away… We can see which way the wind is blowing and we want to exercise leadership,” said AIMA CEO Andrew Baker, adding the proposals had been in the pipeline since early in the new year.
But AIMA’s drive to do this also serves to highlight the low number of funds that have signed up to the HFSB’s voluntary code – a fact seized upon by last month’s Treasury Select Committee.
AIMA is proposing unifying all the industry standards — AIMA, the HFSB, IOSCO, PWG and MFA — into one code. Their fear is that regulators may do this for them.
Made to sweat on Madoff
Appearing before a Treasury Select Committee can’t be enjoyable at the best of times.
But when your clients may have lost around 2.3 billion euros in Bernard Madoff’s alleged fraud, it must be positively painful.
“Your due diligence was absolutely and utterly duff,” Committee Chairman John McFall told Abbey chief executive and Santander executive vice president Antonio Horta-Osorio. “When you’re investing other people’s money you should have adequate due diligence.”
McFall added to Santander’s pain by telling the world he had watched evidence from Harry Markopolos, the man who had tried to blow the whistle on Madoff, on YouTube.
Markopolos, he said, had taken five minutes to spot Madoff, in part because his investment returns were “a 45 degree” angle.
Horta-Osorio defended Santander’s due diligence processes and repeated that the bank had offered to compensate clients, but, as has often been the case in these hearings, few of the MPs looked that convinced.
