Anthony Scaramucci's Las Vegas hedge fund conference is changing it up, as the industry faces heavy headwinds

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Anthony Scaramucci's SALT conference is moving away from the hedge fund industry.

• After not hosting his SALT hedge fund conference in 2018, SkyBridge founder and former White House spokesman Anthony Scaramucci is gearing up for another Las Vegas blowout.
• With the hedge fund industry "in the worst shape since 2009," Scaramucci is looking to expand beyond just hedge funds and attract attendees from the venture capital, private equity, and corporate finance worlds.
• Speakers for this year's conference include former Trump chief of staff John Kelly, former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, billionaire Mark Cuban, and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

SkyBridge founder Anthony Scaramucci was able to use the influence he gained from the hedge fund world to: become the shortest-lived White House communications director in history; amass millions of followers on Twitter; and create enough personal fame to be cast on "Celebrity Big Brother".

But now, he's ready to start moving his signature event - the annual SkyBridge Alternatives, or SALT, conference in Las Vegas - away from the $3.2 trillion hedge fund industry.

"This year, the industry is in its worst shape since 2009," Scaramucci said in an interview with Business Insider.

"It's not the golden age of hedge funds right now."

The numbers bear out his statements. Performance has cratered, fees have fallen, launches have dwindled - all while private equity and venture capital investing has boomed, which is why SALT "made a decision to bring in more venture capitalists, more business leaders" to the conference this year and beyond.

See more: It's not enough to be 2 guys from Goldman Sachs in a room with $5 million - the bar for launching a hedge fund is rising in 2019

The speaker line-up this year has a few notable hedge fund names, like Sir Michael Hintze of CQS, but also features private equity and venture capital titans like Mark Cuban, David Rubenstein of Carlyle, and Dr. Kai-Fu Lee of artificial intelligence venture capital firm Sinovation Venture.

"I'm hoping that next year we will continue to transition away from the hedge fund space," Scaramucci said.

"I frankly have more fun with this move."

The conference, taking place at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas in May, has been held every year since 2009, except for last year, when SkyBridge was in the process of selling itself to Chinese company HNA. The sale was eventually nixed by the government.

There have been reports of disinterest in this year's conference from past attendees, which Scaramucci brushed aside with his usual self-confidence. He said this year, there have been more institutional investors signed up to go than the 2017 and 2016 iterations of the conference. He has plans to expand the conference to other countries, with the goal of hosting a SALT in Abu Dhabi and Singapore in the near future.

"I want to attract people interested in innovation from all over the world," he said.

See more: Inside the rise, fall, rebound, and spectacular flameout of Anthony Scaramucci

Past conferences have often been headlined with a speaker with international clout, such as former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and basketball legend Kobe Bryant, and Scaramucci said he has gotten some complaints that the speaker list is underwhelming this go-round.

"They've become so jaded because we've become victims of our own success because we've had some of the best, well-known people in the world," said Scaramucci.

He put the blame for a lesser glitzy speaker list partly on the "all-star hedge fund managers" who "haven't really done that well and don't want to talk because of it," while assuring attendees that he is always on the hunt to improve the show.

"If Jesus returns to the Earth before May, I am going to try and book him for SALT," said Scaramucci right before the call ended.

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