Billionaire Ken Griffin says exodus from Chicago to The Citadel wasn’t ‘difficult,’ citing crime and taxes

Billionaire Ken Griffin said his hedge fund Chicago imprint It will shrink to just two floors as crime, taxes and other challenges push staff Moving to Miami and New York.

“Chicago, as you know, unfortunately, over the last six or seven years, has been mired in a series of problems,” Griffin said at the Citadel Futures of Global Stock Markets conference in New York on October 6.

The stormy city that served as Castle headquarters For more than 30 years, it has seen much of the company’s workforce and operations shift south to Miami in recent years.

Griffin, who is worth $50 billion according to Forbes, will move his company’s global headquarters to Florida in 2022.

“Asking people to leave Chicago for New York or Miami wasn’t that hard,” he explained. “We went from probably 1,300 people in Chicago to a few hundred. And from being the anchor tenant of one of the biggest skyscrapers to, I think we’ll go down two floors in one year.”

Griffin, who leads the world’s most profitable hedge fund, said the departure of so many long-time employees highlights… Growing economic and social problems in Illinois.

“I think the sad part of the story is the number of people who had built their lives in Chicago and were willing to give that up and move to Miami or New York, just in light of the challenges that Illinois had,” he said.

Griffin added that Chicago crime remains one of the city’s most pressing challenges.

His comments come as President Donald Trump He is renewing his campaign for a federal crackdown on crime in major US cities, a plan that includes deploying troops in some Democratic-led areas that are seeing increasing violence.

The president paid for the publication National Guard forces Nationally it has sparked frequent clashes with Democratic governors and mayors.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker He was among the harshest critics, condemning Trump’s deployment of troops and federal agents to Chicago.

Trump also threatened to expand the deployments to other cities, including Baltimore and New Orleans. Troops have already been sent to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Portland And Memphis.