From Bloomberg By Hema Parmar
SkyBridge Capital, the fund-of-hedge-funds firm run by Anthony Scaramucci, has opened a London office as it seeks to add business in Europe.
The office, which will serve as the firm’s European headquarters, is run by Hesham Alquraini, who formerly worked at the Kuwait Investment Office, Scaramucci said Thursday in an interview. As managing director, Alquraini will lead a three-person team.
“We want to evaluate European managers — most of them are London-based,” Scaramucci said. “We also want to expand. There’s mass-affluent opportunity for hedge funds and for mutual funds on the European continent and in the U.K.”
SkyBridge, which is based in New York, has seen about $200 million in net redemptions over the past year as some investors retrench from funds of funds. The expansion comes even as the firm dismissed eight people recently — two in sales, two in administration, one in compliance, an analyst and two television staff members who worked for the show “Wall Street Week,” which moved to Fox Business Network earlier this year.
The firm made the decision to open the office prior to Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, Scaramucci said. The firm also hired someone for its U.S.-based operational due diligence team, he said.
SkyBridge managed $9.2 billion for clients as of Jan. 31, according to regulatory filings. SkyBridge’s Series G fund lost 4.4 percent this year through July 15. In the past five years, the fund has returned an annualized 4.1 percent.