The securities firm of one of the U.S.' best-known hedge funds billionaires is opening a Swiss office. A star statistician is poised to lead the new office.
Citadel, the hedge fund founded by billionaire Kenneth Griffin, is opening an office in Zurich for its market-making arm, Citadel Securities, the company said. The unit is one of the world's largest high-frequency traders.
The office, which will be devoted to research and innovation, will be led byNicolai Meinshausen (pictured below). A professor for statistics at Zurich's ETH and expert on machine learning, Meinshausen has advised the New York-based hedge fund since 2013.
In Meinshausen, Citadel is nabbing a 43-year-old Oxford and Berkeley graduate who has won several awards early in his career. Citadel also recently hired Stuart Feldman, who created the Unix software platform.
Swiss Trading Seat
Citadel is looking to tap Meinshausen's know-how for its trading activities – including in Zurich. The securities arm in August registered as a trader with the Swiss stock exchange, SIX. It isn't Citadel's only recent splash in Switzerland: the hedge fund took roughly 3 percent of Swiss chemical firm Clariant last month.
It also holds a stake in Cosmo, a fledgling drugmaker, and has held shares in solar supplier Meyer Burger. Citadel was founded by Griffin, who reportedly made his first million as a 19-year-old trading convertible bonds. At $32 billion in assets, the hedge fund ranks among the largest in the world.
