Major ratings house Standard & Poor’s Fund Services has placed a total of 57 funds from 25 managers ‘on hold’ in the wake of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and other regulators moving to ban short selling.
The ratings house said that the affected funds had been able to use short selling for both alpha generation and defensive hedging purposes and that, additionally, a number of multi-manager products had allocations to those types of funds and strategies that incorporated short selling.
It said that all the affected funds were contained within five peer groups of the alternative strategies sector.
Standard & Poor’s said the ‘on hold’ rating would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis with each manager as further information emerged.
