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
There was a time when William Shakespeare was just another little seven-year-old in school. Classes in his day were demanding — and all in Latin. A new book argues that this rigorous curriculum actually nurtured the creativity that later flourished...
Cat hair may be something you brush off, but cat hair is also a slang term that means “money.” In the same way, cat beer isn’t alcoholic — some people use cat beer as a joking term for “milk.” And imagine walking on a...
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.