For the lower-profile HNA Group, which has interests in cloud computing companies, airlines
and hotels, the acquisition of the SkyBridge Capital hedge fund of funds firm last month was part of what it described as a strategy to “build a global asset management business.”
The small spurt of deals is occurring as Asian companies look for expertise on where to invest their stockpiles of money
and hone their ambitions to become financial conglomerates.
Firms like SkyBridge Capital, which offer investors a chance to spread their money around in an array of other hedge funds, the so-called fund of funds business
that layers on additional fees, have had a particularly difficult time lately.
HNA Group, the Chinese aviation and shipping conglomerate, took a piece of a New York
hedge fund company last month, a week after buying a New Zealand investment company.
SoftBank paid $3.3 billion for Fortress, less than half its $7.4 billion value when it
became one of the first private equity firms to publicly list shares in February 2007.
Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder of SoftBank, wants to create a “Berkshire Hathaway of the tech industry.” In January, he met with President Trump, then the president-elect, pledging to invest $50 billion in the United States
and to create jobs there as part of a new $100 billion investment fund called SoftBank Vision Fund.
Despite concerns about the business models, investment firms like Fortress
and SkyBridge offer these buyers new distribution networks and access to wealthy investors

John Hart from Philadelphia is a well-seasoned professional with interests spanning from business development, legal compliance, litigation support, sales management, information technology, commercial real estate, and various other services. Currently, John is serving as the Senior VP, Business Development and Legal Operations at Elite Solutions Group LLC.

THE PRESIDENT: Patricia, thank you so much for sharing your story, and doing such a wonderful job. Good afternoon, everybody. Before I start with my remarks I want to acknowledge some people who’ve been working diligently on this issue, in some cases for years. First of all, our Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner is here. Christina Romer, the Chair of — there she is — of my Council of Economic Advisers, is here. Senator Danny Akaka from Hawaii; Representative Steve Driehaus of Ohio; Representative Walt Minnick of Idaho; Representative Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania; Representative Al Green of Texas. Karen Mills, our outstanding Administrator of the Small Business Administration; Sheila Bair, who’s been doing a heroic job trying to deal with the banking situation as Chairman of the FDIC; Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia; and my National Economic Advisor, Larry Summers. And finally, we’ve got some special guests, some of the finest attorney generals who are fighting against consumer fraud and have been dealing with some of the consequences of the issues that we’re discussing here today — I’m proud to have them here: My former seatmate in the Illinois State Senate, Attorney General Lisa Madigan; Andrew Cuomo of New York; Martha Coakley of Massachusetts; and Roy Cooper of North Carolina. Please give them all a big round of applause. (Applause.) Now, for the last several months, this administration has been working with Congress to reform an outdated system of financial regulations and lax oversight that helped lead to last year’s crisis. And I want to thank some people here who are working tirelessly on this issue — first of all, Chairman Chris Dodd of the Senate Banking Committee, Chairman Barney Frank of the House Financial Services Committee, Richard Shelby, also of the Senate Banking Committee — for the leadership and enthusiasm that they have shown throughout this process. Part of our reform effort involves putting in place new safeguards that would help prevent the irresponsibility and …