Ken Griffin’s Citadel Beats Multistrategy Rivals Gaining 26% in 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Ken Griffin’s Citadel bested its mega-multistrategy peers, posting a 26% return for 2021.

The $43.1 billion firm’s Wellington fund, which runs a market neutral strategy, beat D.E. Shaw & Co. and Millennium Management even as their hedge funds had double-digit gains. Multimanager, multistrategy firms use separate pods of traders to invest across assets and geographies. 

Multistrategy funds broadly rose 8.3% last year through November, and they saw more inflows than any other strategy -- attracting $28 billion from investors for the period, according to eVestment. Investors flocked to these funds to diversify their portfolios and to gain exposure to investments that aren’t correlated to the stock market. 

The S&P 500 index rose 27% last year, while the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury Index fell 2.3%. The eVestment Hedge Fund Aggregate index gained 8.4% in 2021. 

ExodusPoint Capital Management and Sculptor Capital Management came in at the bottom of the group with gains of about 5% last year. 

“There has been a range of performance from stellar to well below average among these capital raising powerhouses,” eVestment researchers wrote in a report. “How does this bode for the group heading into 2022? Frankly I’m on the fence between ‘we’ll have to wait and see,’ and ‘I’m not concerned.’”

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