Citadel Advisors CEO Ken Griffin has defended relocating the firm’s headquarters from Chicago to Miami, encouraging employees to move as well. The decision reduces Citadel’s Chicago footprint to only a few floors, prompting concern from local leaders. Griffin said Citadel’s Chicago staff dropped from about 1,300 to a few hundred, with much of the firm’s wealth leaving the city.
Griffin attributed the decline to rising crime and high taxes, citing impacts on employee safety and retention. He stated, “Chicago, you know, over the last, unfortunately, over the last six or seven years, has been engulfed in a series of problems.”
Griffin added, “Asking people to leave Chicago for New York or Miami has not been hard. We’ve gone from probably 1,300 people in Chicago to a few hundred.”…