Reuters UK – London-based hedge fund firm NewSmith paid its senior staff 29.4 million pounds last year despite some of its investments running into trouble during a volatile year for markets.
NewSmith, one of the hedge fund firms to appear before a parliamentary committee investigating the UK banking crisis in January, wrote down the value of its listed and private equity investments, particularly in Asia, by 7 million pounds, recently released accounts for the year to the end of November 2008 showed.
This included a 3.3 million pound writedown on its holding in FibreChem Technologies, whose shares were suspended from trading over alleged accounting irregularities.
