Citadel’s Ken Griffin moved a step closer to returning to his high water mark after an impressive 2.5 percent gain in July.
His Wellington and Kensington funds are now up about 14 percent for the year when many of the macro stars are still in the red, including Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments, Paul Tudor Jones II’s Tudor BVI and Bruce Kovner’s Caxton Global Investments.
As a result, Citadel is just a little more than 8 percent away from reaching that magical break-even point, when it can once again charge a performance fee for investors who have been in the funds since they hit bottom.
For Griffin, this has been a spectacular comeback after losing 55 percent in 2008.
Last year, Wellington was up 11.11 percent while Kensington climbed 10.75 percent.
Sources say July’s gains were largely driven by energy and equity – both its Global Equities business and Pioneer Path, its equities-based seeding platform .
Griffin is legendary for successfully trading convertibles from his dorm room at Harvard College, where he graduated in 1989 with a B.A. in economics. He then had the audacity to launch his own firm the following year.
Last year, Griffin told clients since managing $4.6 million when he started Chicago-based Citadel, the firm has delivered more than $10 billion in profits to investors.
Griffin is the latest among a number of high profile hedge fund managers that made money in July when the S&P 500 lost 2.15 percent.
Brevan Howard, the London-based firm that manages about $24 billion, was up 2.20 percent in July and is now up 4.66 percent for the year.
Earlier this week, Dan Loeb’s Third Point Offshore fund reported a gain of 0.3 percent in July, giving it a 6.9 percent return for the year, while Dan Och’s OZ Master Fund was essentially flat, up 0.03 percent for the month.
David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital posted a 1 percent gain for the month, trimming his 2011 loss to 4.2 percent.
