| Kenneth Griffin of Citadel (Bloomberg) |
Multistrategy funds enjoyed one of their best quarters in recent years.
These funds were led by Kenneth Griffin’s Chicago-based Citadel, whose Kensington and Wellington funds posted gains of 1.75 percent in March and are up 6.85 percent for the first quarter. The funds rose more than 18 percent last year.
The Citadel funds were driven by strong performance in equities and commodities, as well as event-driven, credit and quantitative strategies, according to an investor.
Meanwhile, Citadel Global Equities Fund gained nearly 2 percent last month and is up 7 percent for the first three months of the year.
Citadel Tactical Trading rose 2.4 percent in March, bringing its gain for the year to 7.4 percent. The fund is equities based with some statistical arbitrage mixed in. However, it has not engaged in high-frequency trading for some time.
Citadel had $24 billion in assets under management at the beginning of the year.
Israel (Izzy) Englander’s Millennium Management enjoyed one of its best quarters in a long time, rising 3 percent in March and 5.71 percent for the quarter. Last year Millennium, which manages about $27 billion, was up more than 12 percent.
The New York fund, which deploys about 170 manager teams, did especially well in fundamental long-short, statistical arb and fixed-income strategies.
Meanwhile, New York–based Highbridge Capital posted a 5 percent gain in the first quarter. This too is unusually high for the fund, managed by Highbridge Capital Management, the JPMorgan Chase & Co. unit with $26 billion in assets under management.
Highbridge was up between 6 percent and 7 percent in each of the two previous years.
The multistrategy fund did well in all its global strategies, which span equities, credit, convertible bonds, capital structure and macro.
Highbridge was founded by childhood friends Glenn Dubin and Henry Swieca in 1992. J.P. Morgan Asset Management bought the firm in two stages in 2004 and 2009. Swieca left Highbridge in 2009.
In 2013, Scott Kapnick, who led Highbridge Principal Strategies, was named chief executive officer of the firm in a carefully orchestrated succession plan; Dubin remained chairman. Dubin subsequently left the firm altogether and now has no connection with it.
We earlier reported that Daniel Och’s OZ Master Fund rose 1.05 percent in March and 3.81 percent for the year. OZ Asia Master Fund was up 2.75 percent in March and 5.45 percent for the quarter, while OZ Europe Master Fund was up 4.29 percent for the quarter. The fund are managed by New York–based Och-Ziff Capital Management Group.
