Ken Griffin considered moving Citadel to NYC, until backlash against Amazon

The hedge fund billionaire called Amazon’s decision to pull out of Long Island City “heartbreaking”

Ken Griffin and Long Island City (Credit: iStock)
Ken Griffin and Long Island City (Credit: iStock)

Ken Griffin, the billionaire CEO of Citadel, considered uprooting the Chicago-based hedge fund and moving to New York — until the backlash against Amazon’s plans for a new campus in Long Island City.

The political backlash against Amazon in New York “has dramatically reduced our interest in moving our headquarters here,” Griffin told Bloomberg. He called the e-commerce empire’s decision to pull out of the city “heartbreaking.”

Griffin began to mull a new home for his $29 billion company in January, after he spent a record $238 million to buy a penthouse at 220 Central Park South in Manhattan. Griffin visits the city about once a week, he said.

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He already had grabbed the record for the priciest home in Chicago in 2017, when he paid $59 million for a four-story penthouse at the top of JDL Development’s No. 9 Walton.

Citadel’s offices anchor the 1.5 million-square-foot Citadel Center at 131 South Dearborn Street in Chicago’s Loop.

In New York, Citadel signed a lease in 2016 to take 211,400 square feet in the 47-story tower being built by L&L Holding Company at 425 Park Avenue. In January, the company announced it would expand the lease by another 124,000 square feet. [Bloomberg]Alex Nitkin