Colin Lancaster to hire up to 20 people for Citadel's new macro unit in 2018

2017 wasn't a great year for some macro hedge funds: Brevan Howard's flagship macro fund lost 5.4% and Caxton Global Macro dropped over 13.4%. This isn't dissuading some funds from building in the area in 2018.

Hassim Osman Dhoda, a former senior trader at Moore Capital in London is building a new global macro fund (Soloda Investment Advisors) in the City this year. He will be competing for talent with Colin Lancaster at Citadel, who is understood to be building a new macro team of up to 20 people.

Citadel announced its recruitment of Lancaster from Balyasny Europe Asset Management, where he was head of global macro strategies, last July. At the time, he was said to be joining Citadel "later in the year" and building a new macro trading unit by bringing in portfolio managers and analysts.

Lancaster is already at Citadel - although he has yet to be registered with the UK's Financial Conduct Authority.  Citadel has made one recent fixed income hire - Andrew Bound, a former Tudor Capital macro trader who left at the end of November. Bound isn't understood to be joining Lancaster's team, however.

Citadel LLP has 93 registered employees in London, according to the Financial Conduct Authority Register.  The fund's most recent accounts, for the year ended 31 December 2016, show it employing 196 people in London in total, up from 151 the previous year. Average compensation per head for the year was £505k.

This isn't the first time Citadel has moved into macro trading. In 2008 it hired Kaveh Alamouti from Moore Capital plus his team of three traders. Alamouti retired in 2014 and that fund was unwound.

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