\n(Bloomberg) Ten years on from the financial crisis, bank balance sheets haven\u2019t become any simpler to digest for the average investor. Finance firms are big and leveraged; regulations have just become new instruments of complexity. That might suggest a potential windfall for any brainy number-cruncher who\u2019s bored enough to spend a year looking for inconsistencies in the industry\u2019s accounts.<\/p>\n
London hedge fund Caius Capital certainly thinks so. It carved out a niche for itself in 2017 when it accused Britain\u2019s mighty West Bromwich Building Society \u2013 750 employees, 9 million pounds ($12 million) in profit \u2013 of wrongly classifying debt instruments as core capital. Not exactly the stuff of a Michael Lewis thriller, but it kind of worked. The Midlands firm bought back the instruments before the regulator had made a final judgment on the case. Caius made money.<\/p>\n