You have closed your year end tax of April

Les Echos n 20462 09/07/2009 p. 25 INTERVIEW - PETER CLARKE Chief MAN GROUP "We want to be more active on the American market" the serious injury suffered last year in the financial markets creates opportunities for the large "hedge funds": it is the conviction of Peter Clarke, the Director General of Man Group, one of the major players in the alternative investments in the world which holds its annual meeting today. In an interview with the "echoes", the British States support the efforts of supervision of the industry of "hedge funds", but regretted "barriers ' warnings by the European directive draft.". And prevent: when the tax threat adds to the regulatory uncertainties, is not the place of London who risk losing land opposite of Frankfurt or Paris, but the whole of the European Union which, in the end, will be penalized. You have closed your year end tax of April. How is the beginning of your new year Well, the collection started in May and this continued in June, especially to individuals. The world now appears somewhat more stable. The performance of "hedge funds" are positive and the return on investment prospects are good. Industry recorded a slowdown of the institutional investors requests, which is also a good sign. But we must recognize that an important part of the institutional demand comes from the United States, where we are still relatively few present. Why We arrived late in the US market. We want to be more active. Until now, the difficulty was that institutional investors in the United States had already chosen their partners. But, today, the circumstances have changed: it is a good opportunity for us to make a breakthrough on the market when investors review their portfolios and their allocation strategies. You are considering an external growth Non. It is rather for us to present our proposal, which focuses on two forces American managers. First, the "managed future" (the FCIMT equivalent), through our AHL funds - and the institutional American are still invested in this type of product. Then, our new integrated platform of Fund of funds, consisting of MGS, managed from London, Glenwood, managed from Chicago, and MWA, managed since the Switzerland. How do you see the industry evolve Investors want more control over their assets and greater transparency. According to a study that we commissioned, in June, 60 of managers themselves ready to place their assets managed, legally separate accounts ("managed accounts"). And 30 have already done. However, little "hedge funds" are equipped with this tool, because it is expensive in resources and requires a large. The big players have an advantage and Man Group in particular, because we do turn accounts managed for more than ten years. After an impressive performance in 2008, your algorithmic star AHL displays a negative performance for two months. Is it fair to say that you are passéà on the side of good trends It would be more accurate to say that the trend is completely returned. When markets follow well established trends, the performance of AHL is positive; When they reversed, AHL usually records a negative performance until a new trend should be established. At this time, the dollar floundering, the duty-level market hesitated between inflation or deflation. In the past, AHL during these uncertain times, suffered during more than four to six months. It is already two months that the Fund is in this situation, but this has not prevented most of the $ 2.6 billion collected these past two months to invest in funds of futures ("future managed"). You are in a unique situation: you have too much equity We eat not capital, we create. Historically, we would go to our shareholders, but we've kept more these past two years. At the time, our own surplus funds reach $ 1.7 billion: This means that we have the double of regulatory capital. In the future, we want to keep substantial equity, but this we not prevent to investments that make sense and make money to our shareholders. Could you give 20 of the capital of the MF Global broker you hold still We have received marks of interest. When we surrendered 80 in July 2007, we well said that we were not shareholders for the long term. The question is what is the best time to sell. The European directive on hedge funds you are concerned about it We support the efforts of supervision and registration of fund managers. The objective of promoting the European passport is also. The directive, however, lack of clarity on aspects such as leverage, derivatives, the rules for the Fund of funds... It is essential to measure the implications of this text on the "hedge funds" industry in Europe. In our view, the objective of the regulation cannot be to block the access to funds when they are structured appropriately. All work should be to define what is appropriate. But for the moment, some measures of the directive are just a barrier which makes it more difficult to access in alternative management funds. Even if the performance of "hedge funds" were often negative in 2008, they were much better than the performance of the stock markets. A regulatory uncertainty is perspective ajoutela of the tax bracket of 50 for "scrollable rich from the month of April 2010 at the United Kingdom": positionde the place of London is threatened I do not think that the evolution of the tax will make a big difference. So it is not certain that the new fee schedule comes into force. However, instability is damaging, especially when the levels of taxation may be reviewed in many countries at the same time when the regulation is evolving. The combination of the two uncertainties may encourage some people to want to get out of the European Union. In this case, this is not London which would be losing to Paris or Frankfurt, but the whole of the European Union. STATEMENT MADE IN LONDON BY ISABELLE CHAPERONE