John Snow, the former US Secretary of the Treasury who has recently joined an alternative asset manager, has warned of the dangers of additional regulation of the hedge fund and private equity industry in the face of calls for greater oversight and transparency.

Snow said: "Hedge funds do different things and some invest in equities which are already regulated. They control large pools of capital so it is natural for the government to want to oversee them. When I was at the Treasury we started to receive regular reports on hedge funds but it is dangerous to lump them all together."