Citadel and Surveyor Capital Overview

Hey guys,

Anyone here heard of Surveyor Capital, the multi-manager carveout that's a part of Citadel? Any idea how they fare with reputation, pay, culture, etc?

Citadel as a whole is a known quantity but Surveyor looks like a new strategy in Ken Griffin's playbook.

Bobertov

Surveyor Capital Overview

Surveyor is a subsidiary fund of Citadel that operates in Boston, Dallas, Greenwich, Houston, New York, and San Francisco. The carve out has ~190 employees and focus on equities. The firm explains on the website below.

You can read more about Surveyor on the company's website.

What is Citadel Surveyor's Reputation?

Kenny_Powers_CFA - Hedge Fund Analyst:
Reputation is solid, model is very similar to Millennium and other tightly-run multi-manager platforms: very strict risk controls, multi-factor hedging and overnight rebalancing, significant leverage on the combined market-neutral book.

Pay and culture for this kind of platform isn't really the same sort of discussion as with single-manager (or even very large multi-strategy) funds because each pod is distinct and each PM has their own capital account/deal structure. Like most of those platforms if the book does well, the team makes a LOT of money, but you can also get blown out and it's not a given that the PM chooses to share.

User @xqtrack", a hedge fund analyst, compared Surveyor Capital to Lone Pine, Shumway, Viking and Maverick.

xqtrack - Hedge Fund Analyst:
Lone Pine, viking, maverick have better reps as places to be as an analyst. Not sure about shumway, probably less so. That being said, life in the HF world is so idiosyncratic that it's best not to get wrapped up in the WSO prestige wars.

You can read more about Citadel on the Wall Street Oasis Company Database.

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Reputation is solid, model is very similar to Millennium and other tightly-run multi-manager platforms: very strict risk controls, multi-factor hedging and overnight rebalancing, significant leverage on the combined market-neutral book.

Pay and culture for this kind of platform isn't really the same sort of discussion as with single-manager (or even very large multi-strategy) funds because each pod is distinct and each PM has their own capital account/deal structure. Like most of those platforms if the book does well, the team makes a LOT of money, but you can also get blown out and it's not a given that the PM chooses to share.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 
whalesquid123:

Kenny - do you have specific ranges for the risk/performance numbers needed to get a seat at places like these? For example Sharpe, min absolute return, max drawdown before you get closed out, etc

a) Not sure quite what you're getting at when you say "to get a seat." These platforms recruit PMs and then impose their risk limits/models on them (subject to negotation), not the other way around. Also Surveyor, to my knowledge, is almost all fundamental-driven so it's not like they're asking to see a backtest algo model or anything.

b) The specific risk management details, drawdown thresholds, etc are very proprietary so I don't have any info on that, but some platforms will negotiate with superstar PMs.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

Random: because of millenniums strict risk controls, you tend to see a 'millennium effect' where names that are heavily long millennium pod money will get their nuts ripped off when a stock tanks and everyone trys to get out of the same name at the same time. You see this happen in energy all the time as there are i want to say around 20 energy pods.

Disclaimer for the Kids: Any forward-looking statements are solely for informational purposes and cannot be taken as investment advice. Consult your moms before deciding where to invest.
 

Thanks, guys. Really appreciate the clarification on their model. "Millenium effect" is interesting.

To push a little further, though: how do they compare in performance and reputation against the likes of some of the older single-manager L/S shops out there like Lone Pine, Shumway, Viking, Maverick, etc?

I'm keying in on performance/reputation because I have a decent sense now of the Surveyor model and I'm trying to get a sense of optionality that a stint at a place like this buys me among L/S funds if I decide the fund/PM/style isn't for me in the long run. (As you can tell, I'm new to the industry.)

 
Best Response
BobertoPM:

Thanks, guys. Really appreciate the clarification on their model. "Millenium effect" is interesting.

To push a little further, though: how do they compare in performance and reputation against the likes of some of the older single-manager L/S shops out there like Lone Pine, Shumway, Viking, Maverick, etc?

I'm keying in on performance/reputation because I have a decent sense now of the Surveyor model and I'm trying to get a sense of optionality that a stint at a place like this buys me among L/S funds if I decide the fund/PM/style isn't for me in the long run. (As you can tell, I'm new to the industry.)

It's a pretty different gig due to the risk controls and focus on "as-measured" alpha; from what I've seen/heard/observed it can make the mind-set much shorter-term, more focused on short-term earnings, etc.

Performance is not apples-to-apples because of the structure. Millenium for example just cranks out 8-12% years very consistently but is structurally probably not going to ever have a year where they're up 25%.

This is entirely anecdotal/a small sample set but all the situations I'm familiar with are the other way-ie a seasoned analyst who's made a name for themselves but is bottlenecked at a single-manager fund and takes the opportunity to run their own risk (even in the confines of the platform's rules). This is for PMs and analysts they brought over with them though-not sure how this would apply to more junior analysts working for a pod.

There have been many great comebacks throughout history. Jesus was dead but then came back as an all-powerful God-Zombie.
 

My understanding is while the various PMs on the Surveyor platform need to run market neutral, the individual sector exposures don't need to be (i.e Autos guy can be long OEMs, short Tier 1s etc.). So while the theory is to do a lot of 5% years running 5x+ levered, in practice risk can be taken at the PM level.

They have good analysts who tend to be smart on their sectors. But with 100+ names in the book, there isn't that much an analyst can do even if they gets things right (analogous to long only). Simply not the same portfolio concentration and ability to take on exposure as value mafia (think Baupost) or Tiger cub (you named some of the larger ones).

 

some energy teams got let go ...not sure who else

Disclaimer for the Kids: Any forward-looking statements are solely for informational purposes and cannot be taken as investment advice. Consult your moms before deciding where to invest.
 

can confirm, i got pinged by a HH about some opening there

Disclaimer for the Kids: Any forward-looking statements are solely for informational purposes and cannot be taken as investment advice. Consult your moms before deciding where to invest.
 

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