Giulio Tremonti, Italy’s finance minister, caused something of a PR nightmare when he announced at a G8 meeting in Washington that he would consider banning hedge funds in Italy. He added that hedge funds were opaque and problematic. "Clearly he is crazy," says the head of a prime brokerage. The Alternative Investment Management Association and the Managed Funds Association were more diplomatic, responding jointly: "It is too easy to point a finger at an industry that is misunderstood; hedge funds are not an appropriate scapegoat during a crisis that was caused by failures in the regulated banking system. The hedge fund industry in Italy is a model of successful regulation, provides excellent risk-adjusted returns for investors and is an important source for job creation. It would be a serious mistake to consider eliminating these innovative private pools of capital that are, in fact, an essential source of capital to investors, to Italy and to the global economy."
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