By Summer Zhen

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Miami-based Citadel has kicked off 2023 with multiple senior hires in London and Hong Kong to beef up its international equities team, after the firm became the world’s most profitable hedge fund in 2022, profile updates on LinkedIn show.

At least five veteran investment and operational professionals recently joined the non-U.S. equity investment team under the $57 billion hedge fund titan run by billionaire Ken Griffin.

Julian Ulmer joined Citadel’s Hong Kong office in March from Lighthouse Investment Partners to take a newly created role as head of Asia Equities Business Development, overseeing equities talent strategy in the region and day-to-day operations.

He previously worked as head of Asian Research of Florida-based hedge fund giant Lighthouse for more than seven years.

After working for UBS investment bank for more than 16 years, Keith Donan also moved to Citadel in Hong Kong this month as a senior trader.

Citadel’s international equities team is a multi-manager business focusing on opportunities in Europe and Asia. Led by Sean Salji in London, the team has over 80 investment professionals in London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Paris.

The three new senior hires in London are Shang Liew from Lansdowne Partners, Cyrill Sourski from Davidson Kempner Capital Management, and Josh Nathan from Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company. Shang and Sourski joined as equity analysts while Nathan was appointed director of operations.

All five new hires updated their LinkedIn pages with new roles. A spokesperson for Citadel declined to comment.

The overseas team expansion comes as the U.S. hedge fund made a record-breaking $16 billion gain last year despite turmoil in global financial markets – the biggest profit ever earned by a hedge fund.

Its flagship multi-strategy Wellington fund returned 38.1%, compared to a 20% loss of S&P 500.

Wellington fund gained 2.8% as of February this year while its equities fund grew 2.4% and global fixed income up 1.6%, according to a person familiar with the returns.

Citadel returned about $7 billion in profits to its investors in the first week of January.

 

(Reporting by Summer Zhen; Editing by Sonali Paul)