"The Tories have become the political wing of the Hedge Fund Party"

This story in the Guardian is petty shocking. The email below was sent out on Tuesday by Labour General Secretary Iain McNicol.

Of course the real scandal is these Hedge funds managers are only making this money in the first place by ripping off your pension and saving funds.

"Hedge funds are bankrolling the Tories to the tune of £25,244 a day — and have received an enormous tax cut from them. Donate now to help us stop the wealthiest people in Britain from buying our election.

This is really troubling, to date, the Tories have received a barely believable £53 million in donations from hedge funds. In fact, the most recent figures show them bankrolling the Tories with £25,244 *a day* in 2014. That's more than most people in Britain take home in a year.

And the worst part is this — these big money hedge fund donors are exactly the same people David Cameron's government gave a £145 million tax cut to. We can't avoid the disturbing truth: if we can't compete with the funds they're getting from their small circle of wealthy backers, the Tories might be able buy the election in 2015".

Hat tip Mr Meech and picture from NewStatement article "The Zombies of Mayfair".

Hedge fund trimmer

SIP IT

A few weeks ago I went to a “pitch” for pension business by the Hedge fund arm of a large international finance company. It was a confident and well delivered presentation. The “only” problem was that the fund managers failed to even consider Pension fund “Statement of Investment Principles” (SIP). 

By law each pension fund has to have a SIP. Many SIP's requires fund managers to put their money only in “socially responsible investments”. This is not just “tree hugging” but based on an important principle that investments in companies that do not for example exploit child labour, damage the environment treat their workers badly or bribe and corrupt local officials will produce superior investment returns. Fund managers also have to engage with companies and vote their shares. They need to have an audit trail that can prove what they are doing. 

Your typical hedge fund does none of this. No disclosure, no transparency and little regulation. Even if they had the will (which I doubt) to act in a socially responsible manner they could not even begin to explain how they could confirm with a decent SIP. Never mind how they could claim that they confirm with UN PRI (which is even more prescriptive than many SIP’s).

So, employer and employee trustees and all other representatives on pension’s scheme check your SIP and see how it deals with Socially Responsible investment. If it is no good then try and change it. If it is any good then ask all your fund managers (and prospective ones) how they apply it. It they can’t or won’t engage then sack ‘em.

(PC as always)