Things are not looking good for the people who work in risk, finance, accounting, IT, and office maintenance (cleaning) at hedge funds.

According to an article on Reuters which appears to have been cut and pasted into City AM, hedge funds are gearing up for consolidation.

Reuters quotes Stuart McLaren, financial services partner at Deloitte. He says hedge funds are engaged in conversations along the lines of, “'why don't you come in with us, we can have twice the assets under management and half the (combined) staff?”

We spoke to McLaren, who confirms this is indeed happening, although full mergers may not be forthcoming. “At least half of my clients have expressed an interest in talking to other managers with a view to seeing if they can do something together,” he says.

‘Doing something’ mostly involves sharing office space and doubling up on support and administrative staff.

“They wouldn’t want to share anyone who comes up with the trading ideas, but there’s less reason for them not to share the people working on their IT systems, for example,” says McLaren.

Reuters also reports that US hedge fund DE Shaw fired 25 support and administrative staff this week in the interest of efficiency.