A group of New York based hedge fund professionals (the New York Hedge Fund Roundtable) are establishing a group to explore the possibility of instituting a hedge fund professional society/ self-regulatory organization. Such a group might be welcome in the hedge fund landscape, which is seeing greater strides by state and federal securities regulation to reign in (and regulate) the industry.

According to their website,

The New York Hedge Fund Roundtable was founded on three governing principles:

1. Continuously educating roundtable members from the investing & hedge fund worlds on relevant industry topics & forecasts.
2. Initiating Best Practices & knowledge transfer to the broader hedge fund world, allowing members to leverage peer information exchange and positively affecting both the profession and others.
3. Creating an environment to support social networking, allowing members to effectively engage with peers while helping them build their own careers & businesses.

A SRO would hopefully stem the rise of future regulation. However, the hedge fund industry has proved to be a hard sell on any sort of self-regulation and with the SEC maxed out with other crises (i.e. investment banks), any legitimate push for hedge fund regulation at the federal level is likely years away.

For more information see: http://www.reuters.com/article/fundsFundsNews/idUSN3135262220080806

For more information on the New York Hedge Fund Roundtable, plesee see: http://www.newyorkhedgefundroundtable.org