Two years have passed since Franz Müntefering, then chairman of Germany’s Social Democrat party, compared Anglo-Saxon investors to “locusts”. Asked how he feels abut the metaphor today, the man who is now his country’s vice-chancellor grabs a metal grasshopper from a shelf and borrows from Edith Piaf. “I have no regrets whatsoever,” he says. “It is a nice image, locusts that move into a field, eat it to the ground, and move on to the next without looking back. I think it was quite apt.” The locusts, he says, are “those who act without sparing a thought for the consequences, for workers, indeed for the people, and try, with the masses of money they have, to make even more money as fast as possible. But someone always has to pay in the end.” In order to secure US and UK agreement at the G7 for a plan to improve hedge funds’ transparency, Germany scaled down its original ambitions. Having abandoned a plan for international regulatory standards to govern the industry, Peer Steinbrück, the SDP finance minister, now favours voluntary pledges by funds to provide information to national regulators. Yet by re-kindling these governments’ suspicions that Germany is seeking to regulate the sector, the vice-chancellor’s unapologetic stance could make it difficult for his finance minister to push even his watered-down agenda through. “We have rules governing the social market economy here,” Mr Müntefering says, “and I would like them extended to Europe and, if possible, to the world. So let us develop rules, create transparency, and keep all this under control.” Staring at the green insect on his desk, he reminisces about his locust metaphor: “I’m a Catholic, you know, and the image that occurred to me was that of the plagues of Egypt — no one should take it too personally.”

This entry was posted by Helen Thomas on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 5:07 and is filed under Hedge funds, People, Private equity. Tagged with franz muntefering. Edit this entry.