(Bloomberg) -- Citadel’s $64 billion hedge fund business has increased its Asia fundamental equities headcount to more than 60 people in just over three years, according to people familiar with the matter.
Two portfolio managers, Doris Yang and Jerry Jiang, are set to start early next year, bringing the number of pods in the region under that business to nine, said the people, who requested not to be named because the matter is private. Citadel declined to comment in an emailed statement.
Citadel has been beefing up its Asia-based equity investment teams to tap the region’s capital markets growth and talent. It’s a reversal of cut backs in the years after the global financial crisis, which also saw other competitors retreating from the region.
As part of its expansion, the company brought back Nick Taylor in 2020, who now leads regional event-driven investing, and hired Sachin Kewalramani the following year to head up fundamental equities in Asia.
One-stop shops that give investors access to a myriad of strategies has been one of the dominant trends in the global hedge fund industry in recent years.
Fifty-five so-called pod shops like Citadel nearly tripled their combined assets globally between 2017 and last year, while growth in the rest of the global hedge fund industry stagnated, according to September 2023 report from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. prime brokers.
In the past 12 months, assets of those multi-manager firms declined for the first time in seven years, amid elevated interest rates and a cooling interest due to higher costs passed on to clients, Goldman said in an updated report last month.
Citadel’s main Wellington hedge fund returned 9.9% in the first eight months of this year, while its tactical trading strategy surged 14.5%. The Wellington fund advanced 15% last year, out performing some of its peers.
Citadel is taking a more measured approach to hiring, employing fewer teams in the region than peers including Millennium Management, Balyasny Asset Management and Point72 Asset Management.
Its high-profile hires have included Kewalramani, a former Asia head at Balyasny, and Avinash Abraham, Kewalramani’s predecessor at Balyasny and a former Citadel employee. It has also opted to spend time helping younger portfolio managers it recruited to expand their teams and develop their skills, said one of the people.
Four of its recent hires spent an early part of their careers at FIL Investment Advisors.
Among them, Yang and Jiang recently left Point72, where they were portfolio managers. Yang also worked at Man Group’s GLG Partners unit before Point72, according to her LinkedIn profile and regulatory data. She will focus on China equities at Citadel.
Jiang was an analyst with Millennium and FIL, before making a portfolio manager at Point72, according to his LinkedIn profile. He will specialize in opportunities in technology, media and communications as well as consumers industries.
Other recent hires include Cathy Xie, who started as a China-focused portfolio manager in June. Another FIL alumnus, she went on to become an analyst at Och-Ziff Capital Management and most recently spent nearly a decade at Marshall Wace LLP.
Arnab Nandi, a former Balyasny portfolio manager, will start in Citadel’s Singapore office later this year. His investment career has spanned firms including TPG-Axon Capital Management, FIL, Carl Huttenlocher’s Myriad Asset Management Ltd. and Oxbow Capital Management (HK) Ltd., according to regulatory data.
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