MutualFundWire.com: The DoL Rule's Biggest Foe, "The Mooch," Is Entering the White House

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Wednesday, January 18, 2017

The DoL Rule's Biggest Foe, "The Mooch," Is Entering the White House

The DoL rule's biggest foe is entering the White House with Donald Trump.

Anthony Scaramucci
SkyBridge Capital
Managing Partner

Anthony Scaramucci, founder of 12-year-old, $12-billion AUM hedge fund shop Skybridge Capital and nicknamed "The Mooch," will be an advisor to the incoming president, our sister publication 401kWire reports. Scaramucci's planned role as advisor and public liaison appears similar to that of Valerie Jarrett, essentially the gatekeeper to outgoing President Barack Obama.

Fundsters watching the fiduciary reg fight may recall that in October Scaramucci, a Trump campaign advisor, called for the repeal of the impending reg and compared it to the infamous 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court case that upheld slavery. After Trump won, Scaramucci was one of several rumored contenders to succeed outgoing SEC Chair Mary Jo White, though that job is now going to M&A lawyer Jay Clayton.

Now Scaramucci's SkyBridge is selling to RON Transatlantic EG and to HNA Capital, part of a Chinese conglomerate, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal report, and spinning off its SkyBridge Alternatives Conference (SALT) for hedge funds. The WSJ notes that Scaramucci had to distance himself from Skybridge and SALT to avoid running afoul of conflict-of-interest laws. Reuters notes that SkyBridge's investment team, lead by Ray Nolte, will stay on.

Scaramucci launched SkyBridge in 2005, "as a money-management business that helped money managers go out on their own," the WSJ reports. He shifted during the financial crisis, buying Citigroup's hedge fund of funds business and launching SALT. And three years ago he even launched a mutual fund, the SkyBridge Dividend Value Fund, now with $480 million in AUM. Reuters portrays that mutual fund as both expensive and underperforming.

Now, with Scaramucci attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, the WSJ is describing him as "the new administration's ambassador to the global elite." On China, Scaramucci says Trump wants more trade symmetry, not "a trade war." Scaramucci called the President-elect "a super-compassionate man," "the least racist person" he's ever met, and perhaps "one of the last great hopes for globalism."

Scaramucci also backed up Trump's comments about NATO and the treaty that created it, agreeing "parts of it ... are ... obsolete," Reuters reports.

"We have to think about changing the treaty to front face the 21st and 22nd centuries," Scaramucci said.

Printed from: MFWire.com/story.asp?s=55545

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