Times Online – Supporters of the proposed EU crackdown on hedge funds and private equity firms admit that they played little role in causing the last crisis. But what about the next one?
They should be reassured by a survey published yesterday by the Financial Services Authority, which found no evidence that hedge funds represent a systemic threat.
The poll of 50 of the UK’s biggest funds, covering about a fifth of the global total, suggests that the common view of their importance is overblown. Their combined equity positions represented only 0.9 per cent of the European shares market and they almost never control more than 3 per cent of any individual asset class, except in convertible bonds. Multiply these figures by five to get the total hedge fund ownership and it is still pretty modest.
