| FSA plans crackdown on derivative disclosure
Regulators today proposed a crackdown on hedge funds and other speculators who secretly build stakes in listed companies using derivatives to cover their tracks. The Financial Services Authority said it wanted to secure greater disclosure of holdings in derivatives known as Contracts For Difference. The current regime risked 'creating market failures'. The FSA proposed two alternative approaches to making CFD holdings more transparent. The first approach would require disclosure of all CFD positions giving the investor more than 3 per cent of the total voting rights of a company unless it was clear the holder could not exercise the votes and there were no arrangements in relation to the sale of the underlying shares by the CFD holder. The second approach was to introduce a more general disclosure regime requiring CFD holders to disclose all economic interests above 5 per cent.
UA System seeks boost in funds
TUSCALOOSA -- The University of Alabama System board of trustees has approved seeking a slightly more than 15 percent increase in state funding for its three campuses. State funding for the UA System currently is $611 million. If approved by the Legislature, the proposed increase for the 2008-09 budget, which begins Oct. 1, would give the system about $703 million. System Chancellor Malcolm Portera said Friday the system's requested increase is based on its needs, but he said the years of such hefty increases may be numbered because of economic conditions. "I think the future is going to be a challenge for us financially," Portera said. "Much will depend on how the economy goes nationally, but we are seeing evidence that the good years we've seen recently may be ending." -- AP Subscribe to the Montgomery Advertiser .
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