Skybridge to invest more in Asian hedge funds

SkyBridge plans to boost allocations to Asia-based managers to about 30 percent of total capital over the next decade, from about $250 million now, said Managing Partner Anthony Scaramucci. 

“The future of global growth resides here in Asia,” said Scaramucci, 48. “We like being early and we like going first. We’re here to establish bigger, broader relationships.”

It comes as Asian hedge funds struggle to expand assets amid Europe’s debt crisis and China’s economic slowdown.

“There is no doubt that asset raising is hard and probably the biggest challenge right now, and this is only made harder by the fact that most investments are coming from American or European investors,” said Mark Wightman, global head of alternatives strategy in Singapore at SunGard, a provider of trading, risk and accounting systems for financial firms.

Scaramucci, who said in July he is seeking to raise as much as $500 million for an Asia-focused fund, is looking to open an office in Singapore as early as April. The company is also planning expansion in China, he said without elaborating.

His fund of hedge funds, which researches individual offerings to spread investors’ money across a variety of holdings, benefited this year from investments in U.S. residential mortgages, distressed credit and late-cycle equities, such as companies coming out of bankruptcy, Scaramucci said.

“The world is suffering temporarily from the aftermath of the global financial crisis, but, like with every cycle, we are going to hit a dramatic cycle up period for the world and I think a lot of the growth will be driven out of this region,” Scaramucci said.

He added that there in three years there would be a renaissance in the hedge-fund community in Asia based on better growth prospects.

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