•  
• Tweet
•  
•        Print
•  
•         Track Keywords
•  
• 

From Kirsten Bischoff, Opalesque New York: Today hedge fund titans Philip Falcone, Kenneth Griffin, John Paulson, James Simons and George Soros will speak before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Perhaps one of the best ways to gauge public sentiment about any topic is via a Google search, and for the hedge fund industry those results do not bode well for future regulation to be wielded with a light touch. (Our Google search inclusive of "'hedge funds' and 'evil'" returned 335,000 web pages and 43 news items.)

Tim Lind, Managing Director at post-trade, pre-settlement services provider Omgeo was recently given the chance to defend the industry in a panel discussion at SIBOS in Vienna entitled "Hedge Funds are the root of all evil" (the inspiration for our aforementioned Google search).

"To me the root of all evil is illiquidity," Lind told Opalesque. "Hedge funds bring liquidity. 70-80% of distressed debt is traded by hedge funds. They are an important part of the markets." Lind points out you can't describe an entity as evil, it can only be behavior which might be evil. "Traditional asset management strategies have evolved to include 130/30 funds, and the use of derivatives and short selling techniques, blurring the lines between what is a traditional and what is a hedged product. If we are going to admonish hedge funds then is that not an indictment on the whole asset management industry ......................

To view our full article Click here