Buy-side keen to profit from bank regulation woe

As banks continue to retreat from privately negotiated deals in the wake of the global financial crisis, some buy-side investors are now looking to move in.

The risks of investing in such illiquid markets can be high but the opportunity is too big to ignore, delegates at the AsianInvestor's 11th Asian Investment Summit heard last week.

“One of the favourite sayings inside Pimco is do what banks can't do that is disintermediate the banks,” Scott Steele, head of the institutional business for California-headquartered Pimco in Asia excluding Japan, told the audience.

Before 2008, banks in both the US and Europe could deliver...