Hedge Funds - The End of the Beginning?

Yesterday's announcement from London-based hedge fund managers, Bluecrest, that they're moving 50 of their (most senior) staff to Geneva is important. It suggests that the cracks already present in the London hedge fund scene - appearing largely as a result of the proposed European alternative investment management directive but helped along by the UK government's move towards a top band of 50% taxation - are now becoming structural.

In short it seems that the destroyers of financial wealth in Denmark, France and Germany are beginning to carry the day. Instead of pride that London (even today) is the world's largest financial centre - and-it-is-in-Europe - there is barely concealed envy that this centre is not to be found in right-thinking (make that left-thinking) - capitals like Paris.

And so it will end up being Geneva.