For the lower-profile HNA Group, which has interests in cloud computing companies, airlines<br />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.”<br />The small spurt of deals is occurring as Asian companies look for expertise on where to invest their stockpiles of money<br />and hone their ambitions to become financial conglomerates.<br />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<br />that layers on additional fees, have had a particularly difficult time lately.<br />HNA Group, the Chinese aviation and shipping conglomerate, took a piece of a New York<br />hedge fund company last month, a week after buying a New Zealand investment company.<br />SoftBank paid $3.3 billion for Fortress, less than half its $7.4 billion value when it<br />became one of the first private equity firms to publicly list shares in February 2007.<br />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<br />and to create jobs there as part of a new $100 billion investment fund called SoftBank Vision Fund.<br />Despite concerns about the business models, investment firms like Fortress<br />and SkyBridge offer these buyers new distribution networks and access to wealthy investors
