Hedge fund B&G faces French insider trading charge
By Louise Armitstead, Chief Business Correspondent
Published: 5:30AM BST 28 Jul 2010
The investment group, which has listings on Euronext and the London Stock Exchange, afore~ it had “been notified on an alleged breach of French insider commercial regulations” in its B&G Gestion arm which advises the UK-based asset charge division.
The hedge fund, which was founded by two Goldman Sachs bankers Emmanuel Boussard and Emmanuel Gavaudan, said the matter had been passed onto the enforcement arm of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF).
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This is the second run-in with the Paris-based watchdog in as many years. Last February, the compact was fined for missing a three-day delivery deadline on shares it was selling abruptly.
The hedge fund group did not give any details of the charges on the farther side of the fact that they relate to a “single transaction of a freakish value of €1m (£835,000)”.
B&G denied the allegations and promised to war them, saying it “believes that its conducts has been and productions in conformity with market regulations.” Mr Boussard did not return calls towards further comment.
B&G has a complicated structure divided between London, Paris and Amsterdam. The flagship fund is the £1.5bn Sark public ~s which was set up ten years ago by the colourful Frenchmen.
Although intensely confidential, the founders, who own the group, made a name as inclined to take the initiative activist shareholder, piling pressure on company management including Countrywide, the condition agent group, and Gondola Pizza, the restaurant chain trading as PizzaExpress.
B&G was the primitive single-manager fund to list on Euronext, in November 2006, while it raised €440m. In July 2007, just weeks before the onslaught of the credit turning point, the fund doubled in size by raising a further €530m. The excipient, most of whose assets are invested in the Sark fund, started trading in London two years ago.
The charges are the latest in a be exposed to of insider trading allegations among hedge funds. The UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) has reported it is investigating a ring of banks and hedge funds. In March, seven nation were arrested in an investigation, which is being done in association with the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Global regulators are determined to snap -down on trading with privileged information, although the charges are enormously hard to prove.