LDN - Business

Sale of ex-Trump aide Scaramucci's SkyBridge on track: executive

[September 19, 2017]

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) - The sale of former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci's SkyBridge Capital LLC hedge fund investment firm to a consortium that includes a Chinese buyer is still on track, with the closing date expected in late September, the firm's chief investment officer said on Monday.

New York-based Skybridge is still awaiting approval from one entity, CIO Ray Nolte said in a video posted to the firm's website on Monday.

SkyBridge spokeswoman Woomi Yun, in an email, named the entity as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The inter-agency committee of the U.S. government reviews acquisitions by foreign entities for potential national security risks.

"At this juncture we'd probably be looking at something in September as a targeted closing date," Nolte said in the video.

In May, Scaramucci told Reuters he thought the deal would probably close in June.

HNA Capital U.S., a unit of Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, and RON Transatlantic EG said in January they had agreed to purchase a majority stake in SkyBridge.

By selling SkyBridge, Scaramucci, a prominent Wall Street hedge fund investor, was paving a path to the White House, which he had hoped to join as an adviser soon after President Donald Trump's inauguration.

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Anthony Scaramucci, Founder and Co-Managing Partner at SkyBridge Capital, speaks during the opening remarks during the SALT conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Richard Brian/File Photo

In July he was appointed as White House communications director but was fired a week later after an obscenity-laced telephone interview with a New Yorker magazine writer.

Parties involved in the deal said in July that Scaramucci's exit from the Trump administration would not affect the sale.

SkyBridge invests roughly $10.5 billion in assets, up from about $4 billion seven years ago when Scaramucci bought Citigroup Inc's so-called fund of funds business. The investment team has been together for years and remains steady, Nolte said.

As part of the sale, the investment arm has been split from the division that organizes the SALT hedge fund conference in Las Vegas, a major industry event that attracts billionaire investors including Ken Griffin, Daniel Loeb and John Paulson and former U.S. presidents including George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

(Additional reporting by Lawrence Delevingne; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Richard Chang)

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