The Church of England faced accusations of hypocrisy on Thursday over its leaders’ attack on short selling and debt trading after hedge funds pointed out it uses some of the same practices when investing its own assets. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, said it was right to ban short selling, while John Sentamu, archbishop of York, called traders who cashed in on falling prices “bank robbers and asset strippers”. Hedge funds pointed to the willingness of the Church commissioners to lend foreign stock from their £5.5bn of investments – an essential support for short selling – and derided the pair for not understanding shorting. Andreas Whittam-Smith, who as First Church Estates Commissioner oversees the Church’s assets, said the commissioners on Thursday referred the practice of stock lending back to their ethical advisory group, which had previously approved it. As well as aiding shorting by lending stock, the Church commissioners had £13m invested in Man Group, the largest listed hedge fund manager, at end-2007 and also sold a £135m mortgage portfolio last year, according to their annual report.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 5:12 and is filed under Capital markets, People. Tagged with Church of England. Edit this entry.