When Standard Chartered revealed today that it had increased its bonus pool to $1.6bn, there was excitement on the grounds that this is the biggest it’s been for15 years. But Standard Chartered’s bonus pool is spread around 84,000 people. At hedge fund Citadel, around $600m in bonuses are being allocated between just 20 portfolio managers.
Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.
This is the implication of today’s Bloomberg revelation that Citadel’s commodities team made $4bn in profits last year.
Citadel declined to comment for this article, but the hedge fund’s commodities team is thought to include 20 portfolio managers plus around 200 support staff (with the latter figure derived from LinkedIn).
Hedge funds typically pay portfolio managers around 15% of their profits. Each portfolio manager is then responsible for allocating bonuses to his/her team from their payout. The $600m will not be allocated evenly but on the basis of each PM’s performance.
Citadel has doubled the size of its commodities team in the past three years and is continuing to hire. The team is run by Sebastian Barrack, who joined from Macquarie in 2017.
While Citadel’s commodities team are being well remunerated for last year, a smaller team made even more money in 2022. That year, commodities profits at the fund were $8m.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.