日本对冲基金行业有一个不断增长的问题。鉴于最近的丑闻,如2月Aij危机,6月逮捕SMBC Nikko Executive Hiroyoshi Yoshihaa在Insider贸易指控和7月romura辞职中罗马尼·沃塔坦队在类似的内幕交易指控之后,更多日本对冲基金投资者开始意识到透明度的好处,强大的运营和更具侵略性的政府监督。不幸的是,这些事情似乎与日本商业文化的DNA有所难以促进银行和对冲基金之间的保密和内幕交易环境。亚慱体育app怎么下载
虽然美国金融业拥有自己的内幕交易和缺乏秘密问题,但日本的问题出现了放大。在日本,作为较大集团合作成员的员工以日语称为同一房屋或UHCI的一部分。那些敢于挑战这一团体的人经常被躲避并被称为局外人或索托。这种气候不培养,例如投资者挑战为什么基金经理在收到适当调查要求后将拒绝其业务。这样做是为了降低趋势:日本的禁忌。然而,这正是发生了什么the case of AIJ.
A second reason why it is so difficult for Japan to embrace more aggressive regulatory oversight of the hedge fund industry is that the modern Japanese business culture still resembles Japan’s feudal era class system. Under this system societal rank or status, which is called chii in Japanese, determined your place in society and how much someone’s opinion mattered, that is if they were allowed to have an opinion at all. Additionally, in feudal Japan samurai’s put the needs of their warlords or daimyo, ahead of themselves even if it meant sacrificing their own lives. There remains remnants of these principals to this day in modern Japan, such as the importance of respecting the honor and status of executives even if wrong doing is suspected, and putting the needs of the company ahead of those of lower status.
这些日本商业的刚性主体has been a continued stumbling blog towards promoting the open flow of dialogue or information sharing within organizations and especially not outside of them, to groups such as financial regulators. This seems to be the case even when a Japanese company plans to acknowledge wrongdoing. This was the scenario, as reported by Reuters, surrounding the high level of secrecy preceding the surprise resignation of Nomura’s Watanabe.
日本商业气候可能在对冲基金行业透明度和监管监督下努力的第三个主要原因是日本被称为Keiretsu的概念。Keiretsu是一群大公司,通常保持彼此的小型所有权。Keiretsu的成员经常为彼此的项目提供资金,并为彼此提供持续的战略支持。虽然有些人可能会争辩说,近年来,凯雷德鲁已经开始失去权力,这一制度是完美的结构,附属的凯尔茨鲁会员可以通过复杂的持有公司网络互相提供的内幕信息并模糊监管透明度进入交易。
在AIJ之后,下一个丑闻袭击日本对冲基金行业的涉及爱德华·布洛根及其惠特尼日本基金,该基金是在日本股票玻璃股份中的内幕交易指控下。
Brogan在大型银行在东京驾驶和含有含有的含水和用餐的声誉eager to gain his fund’s prime brokerage business.所谓的,日本金融服务管理局(FSA)所谓的问题是,除了昂贵的饭菜之外,他们还在Plying Brogan,在路透社文章中被称为东京,有内幕信息。
作为对其宝贵的内幕信息的奖励,报告称,Brogan将通过所谓的战术点(即回扣)授予额外佣金,以向提供有价值信息的经纪人提供额外赔偿。事实上,这种Quid Pro批发经纪人安排是一个不幸的是,在国内日本基金经理之间的练习很少常见。
Specifically, the FSA alleged that Daiwa Securities had provided Brogan’s firm, Japan Advisory, with information about an upcoming offering it was going to be underwriting in Nippon Sheet Glass. The deal would have offered more shares in the company and diluted the share price. With knowledge of this information a hedge fund could short the stock and generate substantial profits. The FSA alleged that Brogan received and acted on this information. According to Reuters Brogan’s funds shorted approximately $6.8 million worth of Nippon Sheet Glass before the offering. The question being asked by investigators is whether the Whitney Japan Fund is a smart investor or had an inside edge?
根据这些信息在jurisdictions that respect the concept of material non-public information would be illegal. However, Japan seems to be a different place in a different time. Rather than conduct their own investigation, suspend the firm’s activities, and pursue criminal prosecution as US regulators did in the Galleon case, Japanese regulators took a very different approach. The FSA instead allowedDaiwa to conduct its own internal investigation进入其参与Nippon Sheet Glass协议并确定自己处罚。
Daiwa’s internal investigation found that certain employees had leaked information but the firm did not find evidence that it had systematically leaked insider information. And rather than be subjected to external fines,Daiwa instead issued three month pay cuts该公司的高级管理人员在10%至20%之间。
Furthermore, the FSA has filed no criminal charges. Since the initial allegations his office has since posted a sign which reads “Temporarily Closed” outside its door and Brogan has left Japan.
投资者seeking to perform an operational due diligence review of a hedge fund manager should inquire into how a hedge fund approaches the research process. Do they utilize expert networks? What about prohibitions on speaking to individuals from public companies? Can the hedge fund manager clearly state their firm’s policy if they are exposed to material non-public information?
Unfortunately, in Japan, as many pension funds learned after the AIJ crisis, such tough operational due diligence questions need to be asked before you end up reading about a fund manager’s problems in the news paper. Without such pressure from investors and the government, hedge fund managers playing on the edge won’t change. After all, why shouldn’t they?
As the Daiwa and Nomura cases illustrate the FSA effectively allows the Japanese financial industry to self-regulate. Furthermore, compared to the US regulators, which conduct independent market surveillance and onsite exams of banks and hedge fund managers, the FSA instead relies on manager-provided reporting for monitoring -- and even that reporting comes with a lag.
As an example, after the Japan Advisory case came to light, the FSA asked the top 12 Japanese brokerage firms to provide details on how they control sensitive information.They had overthree weeks to prepare this information并将其提交给监管机构 - 并不完全立即响应。此外,日本监管机构将研究银行提供的信息,以进行对此问题的监测 - 无论这意味着什么。监管机构没有独立收集这些信息,因为它可能已经在美国,而是依靠银行依靠银行来突出他们自己的问题和设计纠正措施,而是受其监督。
Japanese politicians are fed up with the FSA’s light-touch approach. Perhaps taking a cue from increased U.S. prosecution of insider trading and other breaches. they have taken to putting together their own lists of funds that they feel the Japan FSA should investigate. These efforts are being led by the head of the financial affairs committee of Japan’s ruling Democratic Party, Tsutomu Okubo. While it seems Japan may have had a slight wakeup via a Madoff type scare with AIJ, because the regulators are still lagging behind the politicians, it does not seem the message has completely come through yet.
希望日本金融监管机构将追求更具侵略性的财政监督和报告。同样,日本投资者和养老基金特别应对基金经理尽职调查承担责任,并在金融监管机构让他们失望的地方,政治家正试图赶上。没有这个,日本的内幕交易文化可能遵循美国的领先优势,潮流级别的内幕交易类型活亚慱体育app怎么下载动,然后我们思考。
Jason Scharfman is Managing Partner at Corgentum, a consulting firm which performs operational due diligence reviews of fund managers on behalf of and works with investors including fund of funds, pensions, endowments, banks and family offices.