Tycoons from China planting money management flags on Wall Street

Washington

WHEN a new hedge fund opened in Mountainside, New Jersey, a leafy suburb that still holds an annual Little League parade, few would have guessed where much of its funding came from: Chinese billionaire Cai Kui.

The credit hedge fund, Westfield Investment, was founded by former Goldman Sachs Group managing director Renyuan Gao and managed US$139 million as of January. It's part of a new crop of asset management firms that are expanding China's reach on Wall Street as money has poured into the US from the world's second-biggest economy.