Citadel Is Said to Dismiss 21 People in Culling of Aptigon Unit

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin has made a habit of pouncing on other firms’ distress to seize -- or in some cases, save -- top talent. He can also be unforgiving when it comes to his own business.

The founder of $27 billion Citadel has let go of at least 21 people from one of his firm’s stock units, Aptigon Capital. That would represent more than 15 percent of the group’s work force of 140. The bulk were dismissed in the last week, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The cuts are part of a shakeup in the group, which included the departures of Aptigon head Richard Schimel and Chief Operating Officer David Bonfili.

Zia Ahmed, a Citadel spokesman, said Wednesday that the firm is “committed to the success of Aptigon Capital and made a series of changes to strengthen the platform. We will continue to recruit leading talent to the team.”

The culling leaves Aptigon with about a dozen portfolio managers down from 22, said the person, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Prior to the shakeup, the stock unit employed about 110 investment professionals.

The firm also stripped Aptigon’s most-senior staff from its San Francisco office, where last year a separate stock group, Ravelin Capital, was merged into Citadel’s Global Equities business after under-performing.

Visium Hires

About half of the recent departures consisted of money managers and analysts who Griffin had saved in mid-2016 from Visium Asset Management, the hedge fund that closed after three former traders were charged with securities fraud. Of the 20 managers, analysts and traders originally hired from Visium, less than a fifth of them still work at Citadel -- and only one remains a portfolio manager within Aptigon.

“The best talent is talent you go out and find,” Griffin, who has also rescued teams from Enron Corp. and most recently Hutchin Hill Capital, said at a conference in May 2016 shortly before taking on the Visium group. “The talent you want to hire is the talent you want to pull from someone else.”

Aptigon, which was formed in 2016, didn’t make money last year or in 2018. Griffin had been concerned with the direction of the business and wanted Schimel to cut weaker performers sooner rather than later, Bloomberg reported last week. The shakeup at Aptigon is meant to signal to the best traders that the firm’s resources would be focused on them.

Aptigon feeds Citadel’s flagship Kensington and Wellington funds, which were up 3 percent in January after returning 13 percent in 2017.

To contact the reporters on this story: Katia Porzecanski in New York at kporzecansk1@bloomberg.net, Katherine Burton in New York at kburton@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Alan Mirabella

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