The hedge fund seeding firm SkyBridge Capital LLC said Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire three Citi Alternative Investments LLC businesses with $4.2 billion of assets under management and advisory.
SkyBridge would acquire Citigroup Inc.'s fund of hedge funds business, its hedge fund seeding business and its hedge fund advisory business. The price of the deal, which is expected to close by yearend, was not disclosed.
SkyBridge, of New York, would quadruple in size with the acquisition. It would become "one of the leading global alternative asset managers," with $5.6 billion of assets under management, it said.
Citi's Raymond Nolte, who heads the three businesses, would join SkyBridge as managing director and chief investment officer and bring over a 20-member team.
SkyBridge, founded in 2005, places investor money with emerging hedge fund managers. The move into funds of hedge funds, which invest in single hedge fund managers, is a natural one for the company, said Anthony Scaramucci, its founder and managing partner.
The three businesses are part of Citi Holdings, which is made up of noncore assets and businesses that Citi is unloading.
Citi last year earmarked $715 billion of noncore assets to be sold, liquidated or wound down as it sought to reduce its risk profile during the market meltdown that saw the U.S. government take a roughly one-quarter ownership stake. Roughly one-quarter of those assets had been shed by the end of 2009.
