- SkyBridge's Anthony Scaramucci said bear markets "suck", the FT reported, as his hedge fund suffers.
- He hinted the fund's "mediocre" performance played a part in its deal with Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX.
Hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci lamented bear markets, saying they "suck" because of how much they've hurt his business.
Scaramucci told the Financial Times his company, SkyBridge Capital has suffered significantly during the crypto winter, pushing him to ink a deal with billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, who acquired a 30% stake in the fund through his venture-capital firm FTX Ventures.
"Bear markets suck," Scaramucci said, the FT reported Monday. "If I was doing super-well right now — our performance is mediocre, lackluster — who knows if we would be doing the transaction."
He added the deal was born of poor performance in a poor market, with SkyBridge down 25% this year, valued at roughly $2.8 billion, the report said.
But it also came about because of the longtime friendship and partnerships between the two and their companies, Scaramucci told Insider.
"Sam is a genuinely nice guy, and our teams get along really well," the company founder and managing partner said.
"Our businesses are complimentary because the FTX team wants to get into traditional finance and alternatives, and this deepens SkyBridge's resources and insights when it comes to strategic investments in the digital assets space."
SkyBridge came under financial pressure after the value of its cryptocurrency holdings fell in this year's sell-off amid a broader bear market. Bitcoin is down 51% year-to-date as rising interest rates and high inflation, coupled with Russia's war in Ukraine, have made investors drop risky assets like tech stocks and crypto in the face of worries about recession.
Back in May, Scaramucci told Insider that roughly half of SkyBridge's then-$3.5 billion in assets under management were linked to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum, as well as crypto-related stocks. He also predicted bitcoin would hit $100,000.
Despite the crypto market challenging his optimism, SkyBridge will spend the money from FTX to buy $40 million in cryptocurrencies, which it will hold on its balance sheet, Scaramucci said. He added that the deal with FTX proved to be vital to show SkyBridge still has a future.
"If you have $50 million in liquid assets on your balance sheet, people don't think you're going out of business," Scaramucci said. "It was very important to me to say that SkyBridge is set up for the next 20 or 30 years," he added.
Amid a turbulent time for the crypto industry, Bankman-Fried has emerged as a savior for struggling crypto companies, throwing financial lifelines out to the likes of Voyager Digital and BlockFi.
Scaramucci himself has compared Bankman-Fried to investment banker John Pierpont Morgan, founder of JPMorgan, who bailed out several major New York banks during the 1907 financial crisis.
For Bankman-Fried, the decisions to save crypto companies in trouble were snap judgments that have given "mixed" results.
This story was updated to add Scaramucci's comments to Insider.