Europaabgeordnete starten Hedge-Fonds-Offensive [en]
Hedge-Fonds und Private Equity könnten zukünftig Mindestanforderungen für Kapitalanlagen unterliegen, sollte ein Bericht, der von einem einflussreichen parlamentarischen Ausschuss angenommen wurde, rechtskräftig werden.
Background
Private equity and hedge funds are private pools of capital. Private equity investment funds invest in companies, mainly by acquiring businesses to sell them at a higher price, the so-called buy-out. Hedge funds are investment vehicles which exploit market imperfections to make returns even when the market is going down.
They are very lightly regulated. This allows them to do investments and take risks that other actors cannot take. After the burst of the credit crisis in the US, the European Parliament decided to draw an own-initiative report calling for tighter regulation on those. Although the crisis was not determined by hedge and private funds, some believe they maybe made it worse.
The President of the European Socialist Party and former Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen presented his draft report in April.
The Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament voted on Wednesday (10 September) almost unanimously (one vote against and one abstention) in favour of a resolution recommending tougher regulation on hedge funds.
The report, drafted by former Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, was negotiated until the last minute by MEPs, with over 200 amendments brought to the original. It is widely expected to be confirmed when it is brought to the Parliament’s plenary for a final vote on 23 September.
The revised text, although non-binding from a legal standpoint, carries significant political weight. It asks the European Commission to present a legislative proposal by the end of the year to regulate hedge funds and equity funds, based on the principles agreed by the MEPs.
In particular, it calls for imposing capital requirements on those financial actors, as already requested for other financial institutions such as banks or insurances. The report also calls for more transparency on so-called alternative funds, which MEPs said should be required to disclose their debt exposure and their investment strategies.
The report also calls for measures "to avoid unreasonable asset stripping in target companies" when they are being taken over by private equity investors or hedge funds. Excessive borrowing should also be avoided when it is used to cover leverage, MEPs said.
Positions
Socialist MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the author of the report, described the adopted text as "fair and balanced". He told EurActiv that he is now waiting for the European Commission response under the deadline indicated in the report. "Otherwise there will be problems," he said.
"The door is now open for better regulation that will increase transparency on financial markets. All major financial actors including hedge funds and private equity will have to provide information about their investment strategies, the source and amount of funds raised and also on the remuneration of their managers, including stock options".
Internal Market commissioner Charliee McCreevy, who is responsible for the dossier and so far showed little interest for regulation, told MEPs in the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs that he "will study the text" with interest. "we are carefully following the debate that the Parliament is currently having on the future of supervision," McCreeevy said. "Where possible, I will be ready to try to incorporate some of your recommendations into the Commission Decisions".
Representatives of the industry told EurActiv that "the parts of the text which were too unfavourable to the industry have been removed". However, some concerns remain. The mandatory disclosure of fund's investment strategies, when applied in the US, has brought enourmous amount of demands of information from competitors rather that from investors, they argue.
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