Billionaire Ken Griffin hints at Citadel headquarters moving out of Chicago

Billionaire Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of hedge fund Citadel, hinted Monday that he could move his company’s headquarters from Chicago, saying the crime brings the city closer to a war-torn country.

“It’s getting harder and harder to have this as the world headquarters, a city that has so much violence,” Griffin said. “I mean Chicago is like Afghanistan on a good day, and that’s a problem.”

Griffin said he personally saw “25 rounds of bullets in the glass window of the retail space” in the building he lived in, adding that someone “attempted to hijack the detail of security “that is outside his house.

Griffin owns a $ 59 million Chicago condo, the most expensive in the state, according to Forbes.

“It just tells you how deep crime is in this city,” Griffin said. “There is nowhere you can feel safe today when you come home at 9:30 p.m. and worry about your kids coming and going to school.”

“This is no way for our city to exist,” Griffin said.

Perception of crime has started to make it difficult to recruit talent on the Citadel Chicago campus, he said, and he can no longer say in good faith to people that the city is a good place to raise a family. .

Griffin warned that if the city didn’t “change course,” it was only a matter of years before Citadel’s world headquarters left Chicago.

His comments came during a discussion at the Economic Club of Chicago where he shared his thoughts on topics such as COVID-19 vaccine warrants, cryptocurrency, remote working, government spending and the rise in inflation.

The richest person in Illinois, Griffin has a net worth of $ 16 billion, according to Forbes. Its Citadel Securities manages $ 34 billion in assets and is responsible for 20% of the country’s stock transactions, according to its Forbes profile.

Griffin did not say where he might consider moving his world headquarters, but was asked if New York City could serve as an “antidote to the dysfunction” of Chicago.

“You also need new drugs, because some of the same issues we’ve been facing are now playing out in New York City,” Griffin said. “The road that New York takes is a frightening road.”

Griffin said there was still time for Chicago and the state to back down, citing solutions he had proposed previously. They include reforming the city’s pension system, strengthening law enforcement, and improving the city’s schools.

Griffin also shared his criticism of Governor JB Pritzker. Griffin was a generous supporter of former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, pumping more than $ 36 million into the venture capitalist’s campaigns.

And the founder of Citadel spent more than $ 46 million to defeat Pritzker’s progressive income tax proposal in 2020.