Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group LLC is one of the
largest and most influential hedge fund managers. The quant shop's Kensington and Wellington flagship funds
have reputations as industry leaders, but as a whole the firm's 2008 performance was among the worst of its
top-tier peers.
Citadel is reported to have ambitions to become a major financial-services
institution, including a push the highly competitive advisory business. Citadel is making a big hedge-fund marketing push in the U.S. and abroad and set up several new hedge funds to focus on equities and distressed mortgages as well as to bet on economic trends through currencies, interest-rate movements and other instruments. The firm also has been expanding into market-making and high-frequency trading and building a focused
macro team, rolling out several new funds, including one focused on stocks and another focused on convertible
bonds. It's the largest stockholder and bondholder in online broker E Trade Financial Corp. Amid the market tumult of 2008/2009, the company closed its Tokyo office and cut 25 jobs in its Hong Kong
office, about 20 in trading, including some in London, and others in back-office and human resources. The New York-based Citadel Securities unit has lost several key employees in the past year, but continues to make high-level hires.
Chief executive Kenneth Griffin is said to be one of the richest fund managers in the U.S. He began trading
in his dorm at Harvard and founded Citadel in 1990 a year after graduating.
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