Archegos Cited in U.S. Watchdogs’ Warning About Hedge Fund Risks

(Bloomberg) -- Hedge funds are getting fresh scrutiny from President Joe Biden's regulators as a potential weak spot in the financial system, and the watchdogs are using last year's collapse of the Archegos Capital Management family office as an example of what can go wrong.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council -- a panel of top U.S. financial regulators that includes Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler -- agreed Friday to support “an interagency risk monitoring system to identify potential emerging financial stability risks posed by hedge funds” and to consider options for dealing with the dangers as they arise.

The council's internal working group flagged the March 2020 markets turmoil and -- although it's not a hedge fund -- the Archegos meltdown as evidence that funds can shake the system.

“The failure of Archegos Capital Management -- a family office employing leveraged strategies also used by hedge funds -- transmitted material stress to large, interconnected financial institutions,” the group said in its statement. The FSOC will “continue to evaluate, monitor, and address these risks to financial stability,” it said.

Regulators including Gensler have previously pointed to the Archegos implosion as an example of why there needs to be more visibility into the activities of hedge funds. The episode raised concerns over how one investor could impact the broader market when the implosion of Bill Hwang's firm sent shares of companies including ViacomCBS Inc. and Baidu Inc. tumbling.

“The Federal Reserve, Treasury, and academic literature have all concluded that foreign investors, including foreign central banks, were the primary sellers in the U.S. Treasury market in March 2020, not hedge funds,” Bryan Corbett, the president and chief executive officer of the Managed Funds Association trade group, said in a statement. “The evidence further shows that hedge funds did not pose a systemic risk to the financial system at any point.”

The council's study of such non-bank financial institutions also included an examination of open-end funds and money market funds. The SEC has been doing much of the work to address the funds' stability and the regulators' data shortfall that makes it difficult to fully understand them.

The statement approved by Yellen, Powell and the other FSOC members encourages the SEC to reform the government's approach to money funds and open-end funds.

“Agencies are taking important steps to address these risks, but there is more work to be done,” Yellen said during a meeting the regulators held on Friday.