SkyBridge Capital and HNA Capital Holding have pulled out of their deal — struck 15 months ago — for the Chinese firm to purchase SkyBridge, two parties announced late Monday.
The fund-of-hedge-funds firm has lost a buyer but regains its infamous founder. Anthony Scaramucci is set to return as co-managing partner “to focus on strategic planning and marketing efforts,” according to the announcement.
Scaramucci had stepped down from SkyBridge in January 2017, when he agreed to sell a majority stake to two secretive holding companies — HNA and RON Transatlantic — and spin out the SALT Conference brand as a standalone entity.
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When the “definitive purchase agreement” was struck, SkyBridge managed about $12 billion and Scaramucci had a job waiting for him in the incoming Trump administration.
Since then, SkyBridge’s assets have fallen by about $1.6 billion, firm figures showed, and Scaramucci’s 10-day tenure as White House communications director ended in a blaze of expletives, following a profanity-laced tirade to a New Yorker reporter in which Scaramucci lambasted numerous White House officials.
The HNA-SkyBridge transaction — originally expected to close mid-2017 — underwent a protracted regulatory review, according to press releases.
“While the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. offered a path to approval subject to certain mitigation measures,” Monday’s announcement stated, “given that significant time has passed since the transaction was first announced and the uncertain timing of the approval process going forward, the parties determined that it is not in their business interests to pursue the transaction.”
The two firms plan to continue discussing marketing and distribution arrangements for selling SkyBridge products in China, according to the release.
