A MOOCH SMOOCH
Schwarzman may back Scaramucci’s WH bid
Anthony Scaramucci’s bid to work at the White House isn’t dead yet — and it may get a new lease on life from Stephen Schwarzman.
Wall Street insiders say “The Mooch” may find a surprise advocate in Schwarzman, the New Yorkbased buyout king, as he fields questions from the Trump administration over his business dealings with a China-based investment firm.
That’s partly because Schwarzman’s private-equity firm, Blackstone Group, cut a deal last October with the same Chinese outfit, HNA Group, to sell a 25 percent stake in Hilton Worldwide Holdings for $6.5 billion.
HNA attracted scrutiny last month when, along with the little-known firm RON Transatlantic, it agreed to buy Scaramucci’s hedge fund, Sky Bridge Capital, for more than $200 million.
The deal happened days before Scaramucci was to be named a White House adviser and public liaison.
The Trump administration is reportedly concerned that HNA has close ties to China’s Communist Party, and that Scaramucci’s deal might leave him too conflicted to serve at the White House.
Nevertheless, HNA’s investment in Hilton enriched Schwarzman, who is chairman of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of business leaders that is advising Trump on how to create more jobs and improve the economy.
Schwarzman, who was seated next to Trump as the panel met on Friday in Washington, was also planning spend the weekend at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to sources.
The president might learn more about HNA this weekend if he raises the subject, according to one DC source.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus this week reportedly asked Scaramucci to remove himself from consideration because his review by the Office of Government Ethics was becoming too lengthy.
“Any private company in China is prone to influence,” one China expert told the Post, adding that Scaramucci “shouldn’t be shocked” that the sale is raising questions.
“What’s troubling is a senior US official might have just been overpaid by a Chinese business.”
Still, the same expert noted that HNA acts more like a private company than most Chinese entities do.
“My impression is they are a private company,” with the government owning less than a 20 percent stake. “I don’t find HNA especially nefarious.”
George Soros was an early HNA investor, and HNA has made many global investments including buying baggage-handling giant Swissport International, the expert said.
The only HNA deal that got investigated by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) was its buyout last year of Ingram Micro for $6 billion, which CFIUS cleared, the expert said.
Ingram Micro — which imports and distributes electronics including Apple’s iPhone in the US — was arguably of strategic importance.
Most other HNA purchases are not, the expert said.