What has Archegos’ blight on Credit Suisse and five other non-UK banks got to do with UK shareholders? If the same activity along with the same lack of transparency exists in the UK, UK banks could be greatly exposed without their shareholders and customers being any the wiser.
UKSA and ShareSoc have written to Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, seeking assurance that the lack of transparency is being addressed in the UK surrounding large share trades by private offices and hedge funds executed through their prime brokers in derivative form.
The particular concerns are where leveraged trading causes asset volatility and there is apparent concentration of lending risk to a small number of stocks and to a single counterparty.
Currently private shareholders, or any other saver or bank-account holder, have no obvious means of knowing whether a particular share is the subject of the type and size of trade seen in the Archegos meltdown.
