Bloomberg- Citadel Investment Group LLC, the asset-management firm run by Kenneth Griffin, separated its hedge-fund business from an options market-making unit in what may be a prelude to a public offering.
Citadel Derivatives Group LLC, the options specialist, and an offshore fund that trades the securities were split off at the start of the year, according to a regulatory filing. The move may make it easier for Chicago-based Citadel to sell shares in either business and ease concern that its hedge funds profit from ties to the options market maker, according to Josh Galper, a financial-services industry consultant.
“Legally, it makes it cleaner,” Galper, managing principal at Vodia Group LLC in a Concord, Massachusetts, said in an interview. “No one wants to be in a position where there is a suggestion that a proprietary hedge fund is trading against the order flow of retail clients.”
