‘Game’ Allowed Hedge Funds 10X Leverage, Says Senate

Barclays Managing Director Martin Malloy, Deutsche Bank Securities Managing Director Satish Ramakrishna and Renaissance Technologies co-CEO and co-president Peter Brown are amongst the witnesses called upon to testify today at a hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building. At issue are allegations that two global banks and over a dozen hedge funds improperly used “basket options,” a structured financial product, to “dodge billions in taxes and bypass federal leverage limits.” An investigation by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee focused on hedge funds Renaissance Technologies and George Weiss Associates, said to be the two largest users of basket options that were…