Westport’s Bridgewater Associates is poised to amass a huge investment fund in China, giving its founder, Ray Dalio, the kind of clout that has largely eluded Western financial firms in the world’s second-largest economy, The Wall Street Journal reported tonight.
With Chinese government approval, Bridgewater plans to use a new unit based in China to raise billions of dollars domestically to buy and sell assets in the country, the report said. The achievement reportedly has been three decades in the making.
According to the Journal, Bridgewater already manages billions of dollars invested outside China by Chinese institutions and the government itself. It also won rarely granted access to trade directly in local Chinese financial markets.
Dalio, 68, has been fascinated by China since his first trip there in 1984, the report said.
“He has been back several dozen times and has studied Chinese culture so closely that Bridgewater reflects aspects of Chinese political ideology, according to current and former employees,” the Journal said.
See full report HERE (subscription).
