Deutsche's Kelso: "We’re Not Sure Yet" How Regs Will Affect Us

Peter Kelso, managing director, global CIO at DB Advisors and global CIO at Deutsche Insurance Asset Management, is unsure how impending regulations in the US and European marketplaces might affect his organization.

"On the buy side for us, we're not sure yet - we are waiting to hear from the SEC," said Kelso during the CIOs'/CTOs' panel discussion at yesterday's Waters USA 2010 conference in New York. "Right now we're not sure what that's going to mean to us," he said.

Kelso wasn't the only technology manager who seemed in the dark on the regulatory front. He added, however, that he hopes to get a better idea of the regulatory challenges facing his organization after he meets with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) in early January next year.

Another buy-side panelist, Michael Radziemski, partner and CIO of New Jersey-based long-only asset manager Lord Abbett & Co., said that his firm is focusing on its staffing and potential changes in the mutual fund industry, but that he would have to remain in 'wait-and-see' mode before he could determine how new regulations might relate to the industry at large.

"It's fair to say that there's a lot coming down the pike for all of us, and to the extent that we're allowed to exist in an ecosystem, anything that happens in the industry affects us too," he said. "But we're a privately held buy-side manager and a number of those regulations that directly affect us are different [compared with those affecting sell-side firms]."

BST's analysis: A common theme among CIOs that BST has recently interviewed, is that while they might want to rush ahead with current or pending regulatory projects, it would be more prudent to delay such a move until regulators on both sides of the Atlantic clarify buy-side firms' obligations.