Hedge Funds eye student loan market

Date: Thursday, April 17, 2008
Author: HedgeCo.Net

Outside the Senate Banking Committee room Tuesday morning, the financial services lobbyists began lining up early for a hearing on an issue that rarely lures them out of their posh K Street offices: student loans.

But now, some financial prognosticators see the struggling student loan market, hit by the same credit crunch that’s battered Wall Street, as a potential moneymaker.

According to several people familiar with the industry, as many as a dozen hedge funds — those secretive and lightly regulated pools of billions of dollars in investment capital — are watching intently to see if Congress cobbles together a rescue package that adds liquidity to the market for student-loan-backed securities.