Bank of America Corp. cut ties with about 150 hedge funds last year in its prime brokerage group because new regulatory requirements designed to make the financial system safer are forcing lenders to reduce costs.
The second-largest U.S. bank made the decisions based on which relationships were profitable enough to keep amid new capital and liquidity rules, according to two people familiar with the bank’s strategy, who asked not to be named because details are private. The cuts included the majority of its quantitative hedge fund customers, or those that use computer programs to trade, one of the people said.
Prime brokerage, or the business of lending to and servicing hedge funds, has become less profitable as measured by return on equity under new rules known as Basel III, which are being put in place to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. The regulations have prompted the biggest banks to trim relationships or increase fees for clients that don’t meet profitability targets. Last year, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. pushed some customers to move cash from the bank and cut back on some forms of client lending.
“Hedge fund managers should expect banks to become more discerning in their allocation of equity to support new and existing business -- redirecting resources away from businesses that are expected to earn low returns on equity,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) wrote in a report last year on hedge funds and prime brokers.
Zia Ahmed, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, declined to comment or say how many hedge fund clients the bank has