Citadel LLC (formerly known asCitadel Investment Group, LLC) is an American multinationalhedge fund andfinancial services company. Founded in 1990 byKenneth Griffin, it has more than $65 billion inassets under management as of January 2025[update]. The company has over 2,900 employees,[3] with corporate headquarters inMiami, Florida,[5][3]: 1 and offices throughoutNorth America,Asia, andEurope. Founder, CEO and Co-CIO Griffin owns approximately 85% of the firm.[6] As of December 2022, Citadel is one of the most profitable hedge funds in the world, posting $74 billion in net gains since its inception in 1990, making it the most successful hedge fund in history, according toCNBC.[7][8]
Citadel LLC is legally distinct from the market makerCitadel Securities, although both were founded and are owned by Griffin and remain under common ownership structures.[9]
Griffin started his trading career out of his dorm room atHarvard University in 1987, trading convertible bonds.[10] As a sophomore, he hooked a satellite dish to the roof of his dormitory.[11] After graduating with a degree in economics, Griffin joined Chicago-based hedge fund Glenwood Partners. Citadel was started with $4.6 million in capital.[12] Citadel was originally named Wellington Financial Group after its flagship fund. The company name was changed to Citadel in 1994. Within eight years, the firm had more than $2 billion in assets under management.[13]
In 1998, Citadel started requiring investors to accept terms that "significantly restrict[ed] their ability to withdraw their capital", according toInstitutional Investor.[13] When hedge fundLong Term Capital Management collapsed later that year, Citadel's capital lockdown made it "a rare buyer, as desperate hedge funds unloaded bond inventory".[13]
In 2001, Griffin began recruiting the energy traders fromEnron the day after it collapsed for a new business including "a team of traders, meteorologists and researchers" building amongst the industry's biggest energy trading groups at the time.[12]
In 2006, Citadel andJP Morgan Chase took over the energy portfolio and division of failed hedge fundAmaranth Advisors, which had suffered a 65% ($6 billion) loss in assets. In November 2006 Citadel issued $2 billion of investment-grade bonds to borrow money at a lower rate than it would otherwise be able to.
During the2008 financial crisis, for 10 months, Griffin barred his investors from withdrawing money, attracting criticism.[17][18] At the peak of the crisis, the firm was losing "hundreds of millions of dollars each week".[19] It was leveraged 7:1 and the biggest funds at Citadel finished 2008 down 55%. However, they rebounded with a 62% return in 2009.[20]
On January 17, 2012, Citadel's flagship funds, Citadel Kensington Global Strategies Fund Ltd and Citadel Wellington LLC, crossed their respective high watermarks, earning back the 50% of assets lost during the2008 financial crisis.[21] Having made up the losses, Citadel could once again charge client fees for managing their money and take a percentage of profits.[21] Citadel under Griffin's leadership was reported as differentiating from hedge funds rivals post-2008 financial crisis with an "aggressive expansion".[22] Starting at the beginning of 2014, over an 18 months period the hedge fund's assets under management increased $10 billion; from $16 billion to $26 billion as a result of "a 29% rise for its main hedge funds and a flow of new cash".[22] In January 2020, Citadel Securities paid a $97 million settlement to China, after Chinese regulators ended a long-standing investigation into Citadel and other companies.[23]
In 2014, Citadel became the first foreign hedge fund to complete a yuan fundraising as part of a program to allow Chinese investors to invest in overseas hedge funds.[24]
In July 2020, during thecoronavirus pandemic, Citadel created a "bubble" for a class of 100 interns by renting out a luxury resort in Wisconsin.[25][26][27]
Citadel Solutions was Citadel's fund-administration arm.[28] The company changed its name to Omnium in 2009[29] and was sold toNorthern Trust in 2011.[30]
Citadel Technology, established in 2009, was a wholly owned and independently operated affiliate of Citadel.[31][32] It offered investment management technology, developed internally at Citadel, to a wide range of firms and funds.[33] In 2013, Citadel Technology announced a partnership withREDI. The partnership combines Citadel's order management system (OMS) with REDI's execution management capabilities (EMS).[31]
Aptigon Capital was formed in 2016 after Citadel LLC hired 17 portfolio managers from its rivalVisium Asset Management which was in the process of closing down.[34][35] It was originally led by Richard Schimel until he left Citadel in 2018; being replaced by Eric Felder.[36] Felder led the unit until its closure in 2019 after Felder's departure from the company.[35]
In 2021, Citadel ranked second among the top money managers for net gains.[41]
In a letter to employees on June 23, 2022, Griffin announced they would be moving their headquarters to Miami, Florida, due to a more favorable business climate and increased crime complaints in Chicago.[42][43][44]
In 2022, Citadel's hedge fund unit posted its record year of revenues to date, generating about $28 billion in revenue.[46] Citadel returned $16 billion to its clients in 2022, which was a record annual return for both the fund of American investor Kenneth Griffin and the entire industry. In addition, this allowed Citadel to overtake Bridgewater in the list of the most profitable hedge funds in history according to experts from LCH Investments.[47]
In 2023, Citadel returned about $7 billion in profits to its clients, which amounted to about a 15% return for its flagship fund.[48]
As of June 2024, Citadel managed more than $63 billion in capital and was one of the world's largest asset managers.[49][50] Citadel ranks as the eleventh largest hedge fund manager in the world,[51] and in 2023 the second largest multi-strategy hedge fund globally.[52] Citadel's group of hedge funds rank among the largest and most successful hedge funds in the world.[53]
In September 2025, Citadel announced new offices set in the Boston new south station tower.[54]
In October 2025, Citadel LLC announced it would acquire German power trading firm, FlexPower.[55]
In 2004, Citadel founded CIG Reinsurance Ltd (CIG Re), a Bermuda-based catastrophe reinsurer providing $450 million in capital.[57] Citadel additionally founded $500 million reinsurer New Castle Re in 2005, seeking to capitalize on rising prices for reinsurance in the wake ofHurricane Katrina's damage to property coverage costs.[58][59][60] In 2006, Citadel's two funds, CIG Re and New Castle Re, had approximately 10 percent of its assets invested in reinsurance.[61]
Citadel wound down CIG Re in November 2008 because the company could not achieve a financial strength rating, and as a result could not compete in comparison to other companies in the industry.[60][62] In January 2009, Citadel placed New Castle Re into run-off.[63]
The firm'srisk management philosophy is focused on risk capital allocation, stress exposure and liquidity management.[64] Citadel's risk management center has 36 monitors displaying more than 50,000 instruments being traded within the firm's portfolios.[64] The firm runs 500 stress tests each day to simulate the impact of potential economic and geopolitical crises or other market dislocation.[64] Citadel aggregates investment positions on trading screens to calculate "more than 500 doomsday scenarios" to assess the potential of risk for the firm.[22]
In 2014, Citadel rated an A grade for risk management in the annual Institutional Investor Hedge Fund Report Card.[65]
In April 2015,Ben S. Bernanke, who was the United StatesFederal Reserve chairman for eight years, joined Citadel as a senior adviser on global economic and financial issues.[66] In January 2017, Joanna Welsh became the Chief Risk Officer.[67]
In November 2006, Citadel became the second hedge fund to publicly issue bonds to investors in the form of senior unsecured debt totaling $2 billion, in an arrangement managed byLehman Brothers andGoldman Sachs.[76]
In 2007, the fund was known for having one of the largest turnover rates in Chicago, gaining the nickname "Chicago's revolving door."[77] TheNew York Times reported in 2010 that "the firm is unique in its reputation for being a revolving door", meaning that it had a high turnover rate.[12][78] It is also reported that turnover is aligned with the hedge fund industry.[77]
In March 2015, Citadel received a Top 10 Great Workplaces in Financial Services ranking by the Great Places to Work Institute, based on a survey by Citadel employees.[79]
Citadel has played an active role in regulatory affairs and has advocated for financial legislation on market structure. In 1999, Congress repealed a provision in theGlass-Steagall Act of 1933 that strictly separated banking and trading activities by financial firms. Griffin called dismantling that law "one of the biggest fiascos of all time".[80] After the2008 financial crisis, Griffin and Citadel called for greater transparency in derivatives trading, a stance at odds with many other hedge funds and major financial firms. The company spoke out against Wall Street for lobbying to delay the implementation of theDodd–Frank Act.[80][81] Griffin has also called for breaking up "too big to fail" banks and separating their banking and trading activities.[81]
Following the 2014 publication ofFlash Boys byMichael Lewis, who claimed financial markets are "rigged by large, high-speed traders" (also known as "high-frequency traders") Griffin, who was not interviewed by Lewis, shared his views on the book and its allegations during his second congressional hearing.[82] Griffin said in front of the Senate Banking Committee that from his perspective "the U.S. equity markets are the fairest, most transparent, resilient and competitive markets in the world."[82] Griffin expanded by saying that high-frequency trading functions to reconcile discrepancies between options tied to groups of stocks and the stocks themselves, saying, "Somebody has to keep the New York markets in line with the markets in Chicago. It all happens at an extremely low cost in the context of our capital markets".[82] During an event atGeorgetown University, Griffin called the book "fiction".[83]
^abcLux, Hal (August 31, 2001)."Boy Wonder".The Institutional Investor. Cfo Directory. United States.ISSN0020-3580.Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. RetrievedJuly 24, 2015.
^Kolhatkar, Sheelah (April 16, 2007)."Opening Up the Citadel".Upstart Business Journal.Archived from the original on February 26, 2015. RetrievedFebruary 24, 2015.
^Rose-Smith, Imogen (2006 2006). "Land of the Giants" (PDF). Alpha magazine. p. 3. Retrieved 2008-03-20[dead link].
^abZuill, Lilla; Orr, Bernard (November 7, 2008)."Hedge fund Citadel shuttering Bermuda reinsurer". Business News. New York, N.Y., United States. Thomson Reuters.Archived from the original on December 14, 2019. RetrievedDecember 14, 2019.
^Pittman, Mark (December 8, 2006)."Citadel sells bonds". Bloomberg.The Royal Gazette. New York, N.Y., United States.Archived from the original on December 16, 2019. RetrievedDecember 15, 2019.
^ab"Risk 25 firms of the future: Citadel"(PDF). United States: Risk.net. Infopro Digital Risk (IP) Limited. August 1, 2012.Archived(PDF) from the original on July 12, 2014. RetrievedJuly 13, 2015.
