Hedge funds not mercenaries
Hedge funds do not deserve their mercenary reputations, the Hedge Funds Review said today.Although an expert in the field said admitted that hedge funds were certainly guilty of acting out of self-interest, he maintained that their influence was no more detrimental to their investments than that of other investors. Hedge funds have come under the press spotlight recently with rumours that the Dutch bank ABN AMRO - which is currently in takeover talks with Barclays - had been forced to consider a merger after recent bad performance moved its hedge fund shareholders to lobby for ABN to be broken-up.Spokesperson Solomon Teague suggested that the media gives an "unfair and inaccurate" perception of hedge funds."I think that hedge funds are perhaps a bit more organised and probably a bit more savvy than your average investor - which is why they maybe find their into the press a lot," he said. "They throw their weight around quite effectively. With a two or three per cent holding of a company they can make their presence felt."I would say that there is a hysterical perception within the mainstream press that hedge funds are acting in some sort of selfish way that is to the detriment of the rest of the capital markets," he added. Last month TUC general-secretary, Brendan Barber launched an attack on private equity investors â€" accusing them of a similar methodology of ruthless cost-cutting and asset-stripping in order to temporarily inflate company share prices.
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