SEC Official Calls Stiffer Hedge Fund Rules a Given

The Securities and Exchange Commission will almost assuredly approve proposed rules that will increase the minimum assets an investor must have to partake in a hedge fund, Reuters reports. Currently, that’s $1 million, inclusive of the value of one’s home. The SEC wants to make that $2.5 million, exclusive of homes, and will most likely succeed, Jennifer McHugh, a senior adviser in the SEC’s division of investment management, told the Council of Institutional Investors.

The SEC will change the requirements in spite of thousands of investors’ comment letters protesting them, McHugh said.

In addition, the SEC is considering applying anti-fraud rules to hedge funds and is also considering imposing requirements for investing in a venture capital fund. “We’ll be looking carefully at that issue, as well,” McHugh said.

Finally, the SEC will soon put behind it the long-debated issue of independent chairmen, she said. “I think it would be good for the fund industry is we could put that behind us,” she said.