Hedge funds warning

Germany’s finance minister warned against expecting a fast agreement on how to make hedge funds more transparent as he hosted a meeting of his Group of Eight counterparts outside Berlin.

The ministers started a two-day meeting free of one potential irritant – the future of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who has announced his resignation.

Germany has made tighter supervision of high-risk hedge funds a focus of its G-8 presidency and has been pushing for a voluntary code of conduct. But Steinbrueck said lengthy discussions would be needed to come up with a way of avoiding “systemic risks for the world’s financial markets, especially for the US”.