have hair v. phr. (of a financial transaction or investment) to be less than ideal; to be risky; to have complications. Editorial Note: Two common meanings of “to have hair” well-covered elsewhere are “to be old” and “to be manly, robust, or substantive.” (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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Pure speculation, of course, but I wonder if this could be related to the informal term “hairy” meaning (according to wordnet) “hazardous and frightening; ‘hairy moments in the mountains’” (I would personally add some implication of complexity to much of the usage). I could imagine someone in the financial industry using “having hair” as a jocular variant of “hairy” to describe a “hazardous and frightening” investment and having the phrase catch on as jargon.
Perhaps. It calls to my mind food with hair on it. Something you could go ahead and eat, since hair isn’t poisonous, just disgusting.