Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
- Anthony Scaramucci's firm SkyBridge Capital beat peers during October's market volatility.
- Scaramucci, who tried to sell SkyBridge to a Chinese conglomerate last year, said he is "absolutely not" thinking about selling the firm now.
Anthony Scaramucci has found religion - again - in his business.
He lost it briefly last year, living in "an alternative universe" that saw him spend 10 days as White House communications director and attempting to sell his alternatives firm SkyBridge Capital to a Chinese conglomerate.
Now, in an interview with Business Insider, the Long Island native says that he's back and bullish, despite seeing $2 billion in outflows last year.
SkyBridge, founded by Scaramucci in 2005, runs one of the few fund of hedge funds to emerge relatively unscathed from October's market rout. SkyBridge's flagship fund, $4.9 billion Series G, returned -0.2% net of fees in October, according to the firm. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Total Return Index was down 6.8% and the HFRI Fund of Funds Composite Index returned -2.7%.
Hedge funds overall saw their worst month since May 2010, leading JPMorgan to predict $5-$10 billion of outflows per quarter in 2019. Series G concentrates its bets on a few hedge funds, with 70% of the capital going to 10 managers.
Scaramucci was adamant that he has no plans to relinquish his business. In late 2016, he announced a sale to HNA, a Chinese conglomerate that has struggled to receive approval for multiple deals from the US government committee that approves transactions to foreign buyers. The SkyBridge sale, reportedly valued at $180 million, was officially scuttled in April.
Would Scaramucci consider a minority stake sale now?
"Absolutely not," he said. "I'm 100% committed to the firm. I've got re-religion on the business. Remember, this was my business. I started it from scratch."
He has "no interest" in working in DC again or in selling a piece of the firm after recent experience. Instead, he's focusing on bringing SALT back to Las Vegas in the spring and to its first Middle East location, yet to be announced, for fall 2019. Scaramucci is also busy readying a fund to invest in opportunity zones, which he thinks could raise up to $3 billion.
"I'm very, very bullish on my firm and I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I'm the largest stakeholder and I'm not looking to change that."
Meanwhile, SkyBridge's assets under management - $9.6 billion, as of September 30 - are still ticking back up after $2 billion in outflows.
"A combination of that was political and some of that was due to our performance in 2016," Scaramucci said. "The people that are in the fund now are probably agnostic to politics or if they hate my a--, they love our performance and don't care."
More than 80% of Series G's investors are high net worth individuals, while the rest are institutional. Through the end of October, the fund returned 6.1% net.