Ken Griffin’s Citadel Returned 10% in 2010; Loeb’s Is Triple That

Ken Griffin’s Citadel returned about 10 percent in 2010, according to a person who has seen the numbers but wasn’t authorized to share them publicly.

Citadel’s flagship Wellington and Kensington funds gained around 10 percent, but still below their high water mark achieved at the end of 2007. Citadel lost 55% in 2008. To reverse that, it needed to have returned more than 122%. It gained 62% in 2009. After this year’s 10%, Citadel still needs to deliver another 25 percent return to surpass its high water mark.

Insider Monkey isn’t impressed with Citadel’s performance. Citadel doesn’t seem to offer much downside protection and its returns are like a high beta mutual fund’s returns during the past couple of years.

On the other hand, Dan Loeb’s Third Point returned 25.3% during the first 11 months of 2010. According to a person who hasn’t seen the numbers but knows the results anyway, Third Point returned about 30 percent in 2010. This is impressive because Third Point’s market beta is only 0.58 and Loeb managed to generate a nearly 20 percent alpha this year.