CoolPass: Leading hedge funds put Citigroup ahead of Goldman.

March 7, 2011 - PRLog -- CoolPass has been informed that Andreas Halvorsen, manager for Viking Global Investors sold all of his Goldman Sachs Group shares while at the same time adding to his Citigroup shares.

The Viking Global Investors manager was part of a wider surge moving toward Citigroup, which closed off 2010 as the most popular holding of the “Smart Money 30”, a group of some of the biggest stock-picking equity hedge funds.

Investors are banking on improving prospects for the U.S’s third-biggest bank, and shielding themselves from the regulatory risk hanging over Goldman Sachs and other investment banks. Regulatory restrictions on proprietary trading have meant that Goldman has had to shut down some of its operations, and investors are unsure about the company’s long-term revenue growth capabilities when its core businesses are being curbed.

"To the extent that banks are going to be restricted from betting on market movements with their own capital, that creates headwinds to Goldman Sachs' business model," chief investment officer at Atlanta-based wealth management firm Balentine, Adrian Cronje told CoolPass sources.

"People are more interested in boring old businesses in the financial sector that take deposits and create high-quality loans," he added.

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