German Elections May Result in More Hedge Fund Regulation

Date: Friday, December 14, 2012
Author: Ahila Karan, ProHedge.co.uk

Peer Steinbrück, former German Finance Minister, was nominated as the Social Democratic Party’s candidate, to take on Angela Merkel in the 2013 election. Critical of the alternative investments industry, Steinbrück would be heavy handed on hedge fund operations.

Stringent regulation on hedge funds and private equity firms was key to Steinbrück’s agenda, during the ‘grand coalition’ with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, ending in 2009.

After failing to push through tighter regulation during his term and experiencing the coalition’s resistance, Steinbrück has rejected the option of serving another coalition during the next election.

With waning public support for FDP, Steinbrück has become a genuine threat to Merkel’s current CDU-FDP coalition in the forthcoming election.

Steinbrück addressed the SDP conference this weekend, “the financial crisis showed that things have got out of balance in Germany, in Europe and in our society”.