Hedge funds that bet on a decline in British mortgage lender HBOS Plc are “bank robbers” and “asset strippers,” according to the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, the Church of England’s second-ranking cleric.<\/p>\n
“To a bystander like me, those who made 190 million pounds ($353 million) deliberately underselling the shares of HBOS, in spite of its very strong capital base, and drove it into the bosom of Lloyds TSB Bank, are clearly bank robbers and asset strippers,” Sentamu told an audience of bankers at Drapers’ Hall in the City of London last night, according to his Web site.<\/p>\n
Sentamu’s speech came as the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican church’s highest-ranking cleric, urged the British government to adopt more radical regulations, in addition to the temporary ban on short-sales of financial stocks in an article published yesterday on the Spectator magazine’s Web site.<\/p>\n
“The question is not how to choose between total control and total deregulation, but how to identify the points and practices where social risk becomes unacceptably high,” Williams wrote. “The banning of short-selling is an example of just such a judgment. Governments should not lose their nerve as they look to identify a few more targets.”<\/p>\n