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CitadelÆs special situations group loses Hsu and Qian

Two founding members of Citadel AsiaÆs special situations department leave the giant hedge fund.
Chris Hsu and Frank Qian have left Citadel Investments in Hong Kong. Hsu ran the structured and special situations investing arm at Citadel in Hong Kong and is understood to be one of the youngest managing directors ever appointed at Citadel. Qian is a quantitative analyst and handled risk management and trading at Citadel.

Hsu, who is currently staying in Tokyo, says he plans to continue working in Hong Kong and will disclose his future work plans soon. Due to the terms of his employeeÆs confidentiality agreement, he was not able to explain his departure from Citadel.

Citadel itself did not offer any comment on the staff departures, but it is understood that no replacements for the two exiting men have yet been announced.

In a separate, unrelated move, Feng Hsiung, the head of CitadelÆs Asian risk arbitrage business, has also left the company. He is believed to be joining a rival hedge fund, York Capital. York CapitalÆs headquarters in New York declined to confirm these rumours.

Citadel was founded by Kenneth Griffin in 1990 and now has assets under management of approximately $13 billion. It was recently revealed that CitadelÆs earnings for the first eight months of 2006 at its two largest funds increased fivefold. This was attributed to gains from debt and energy investments, including a boost to profits from the takeover of the portfolio of energy trades from the collapsed hedge fund Amaranth.
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