SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci is responding to concerns about the firm temporarily halting withdrawals on one of its investment funds that has exposure to crypto.
In a new interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, the investing veteran explains the reasoning behind pausing client redemptions in Legion Strategies fund while allaying fears of potential liquidation.
“Our board made a decision to temporarily suspend until we can raise capital inside the fund and make sure when people get out, they get out orderly and we keep the fund’s portfolio composition more or less in sync, so as not to damage investors if they want to stay in.
The fund is down 30% year-to-date. It’s up 5% this month. The fund is un-levered so there’s absolutely no fear of any liquidation whatsoever.”
Scaramucci goes on to say that about one-fifth of the fund is invested in cryptocurrency-related products such as Bitcoin (BTC) and the FTX exchange, noting that once market conditions improve the fund will return to normal activities.
“About 18% of the fund is in what we would call crypto exposure. Some of that is in things like Bitcoin. Also private investments in things like Sam Bankman-Fried’s company FTX.
Stepping back from the whole thing, we made the decision alongside our independent board, and as things start to get better we’ll release that suspension.”
The hedge fund billionaire concludes by observing that investors often panic when they see the value of their portfolios drop. He adds that the Legion Strategies fund has been operational for nearly three decades.
“Everybody’s a long-term investor until they have short-term losses. What ends up happening is they start to change their investment idea when they start seeing near-term negative performance.
Some investors are upset, but frankly, there are a lot of investors… That fund has been open since 1994. There’s a lot of investors in there that have long-term embedded capital gains.”
Back in mid-June, Scaramucci reaffirmed his commitment to long-term crypto investments despite the asset class tumbling by over 70% since late 2021.
He suggested it was possible for Bitcoin to surge past $100,000 over the next one to two years, then said of the overall crypto space,
“I can’t predict the future, but what I can see is there is a tremendous amount of robust development and adoption.
Lots of positives as it relates to fundamentals. Just the price action is terrible right now.”
At time of writing, Bitcoin is maintaining positive momentum, up another 3.8% on the day and trading for $23,319.
BTC has rallied by 22% from a weekly low of $19,113 last Wednesday.
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