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Crispin Odey, one of London's best-known hedge fund managers, today lashed out at US and UK plans to introduce much tighter regulation for his industry.
"We are resistant because it is a lot of rubbish," he said, adding: "What hurt the banks is what they did to themselves not what we did to them.
"If your fund is two-times leveraged you are not allowed to have that. But if the company you invest in happens to be five-times leveraged that is fine - even if you own the shares. You cannot say lending to a company is a good thing but lending to a hedge fund is a bad thing."
Odey claimed that countries are now keen to apply stricter regulation and tighter funding rules out of "purely nationalistic and selfish motives", and he summed the situation by saying: "The point is, visceral legislation is a dangerous thing to do."
He also pointed out that 22% of the funds he runs are now owned by pension funds so everyone would suffer if new legislation impeded his performance and was critical of the London rules about short-selling bank shares.
