Citadel Dominates Multistrategy Peers With 3.4% Gain

(Bloomberg) -- Ken Griffin’s $30 billion Citadel extended its lead over multistrategy rivals, as its flagship hedge funds jumped 3.4% last month.

Citadel’s Kensington and Wellington funds, which beat peers including Point72 Asset Management and Millennium Management in 2019, made money across all of the firm’s strategies in January, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Global equity markets fell and bonds rallied last month amid concerns that the spread of the coronavirus will hurt growth.

Hedge funds fell about 0.1% in January, according to preliminary data compiled by Bloomberg.

Citadel is composed of three equity units, as well as fixed-income and macro, quantitative, credit and commodities businesses, all feeding into Kensington and Wellington. The firm also has a Global Fixed Income hedge fund, which gained 3.2% in January, and a Tactical Trading fund, which rose 2.1%. That fund employs equity and quantitative strategies.

Among other big multistrategy firms, Steve Cohen’s Point72 and Izzy Englander’s Millennium climbed less than a percentage point, according to people familiar with the matter. The main fund at Sculptor Capital Management, formerly Och-Ziff, was up 2.6%, while Michael Gelband’s ExodusPoint Capital Management rose 1.1%. Dmitry Balyasny’s namesake fund was little changed.

Representatives for the firms declined to comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katia Porzecanski in New York at kporzecansk1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sam Mamudi at smamudi@bloomberg.net, Josh Friedman, Melissa Karsh

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