Citadel tells key researchers to relocate from Hong Kong or quit, FT reports

May 13 (Reuters) – Hedge fund Citadel has moved some of its core researchers out of Hong Kong, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

Hong Kong has long established itself as a bridge between China and the rest of the world, and is a key regional hub for U.S. financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Jane Street.

Miami-based Citadel told members of its Hong Kong-based global quantitative strategies team in recent months that they had to either relocate or leave the company, the newspaper said, citing sources.

Some affected researchers took the offer to relocate to Singapore or Miami, while some left the fund, the report said.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Citadel did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

The report said concerns over data security were part of the reason for relocating staff key to the fund’s development of trading tactics.

However, Citadel told the newspaper that the relocations were not related to data security concerns and that the fund continued to hire quantitative researchers in both Hong Kong and Singapore.

“This is Citadel’s global co-location strategy and has nothing to do with data security,” Citadel told the FT.

Citadel, founded by billionaire Ken Griffin, is one of the world’s most profitable hedge funds. It had $67 billion of assets under management, as of April 1.

(Reporting by Fabiola Arámburo in Mexico City; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Subhranshu Sahu)