Billionaire Ken Griffin is relocating his big hedge-fund firm Citadel from Chicago to Miami, the third major employer to announce the move of a corporate headquarters from Illinois in the past two months.

In a letter to employees Thursday that was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Griffin said he had personally moved to Florida and that his market-making business, Citadel Securities, would also transfer. He wrote he views Florida as a better corporate environment and though he didn’t specifically cite crime as a factor, company officials said it was a consideration.

Mr. Griffin is the wealthiest resident of Illinois, so his departure will hurt state tax collections on both the individual and corporate side. It could also be a blow to Chicago’s philanthropic scene; Mr. Griffin has given more than $600 million in gifts to educational, cultural, medical and civic organizations in the area, spokesman Zia Ahmed said.

Mr. Griffin has an estimated worth of $28.9 billion and is among the world’s top 50 wealthiest, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Late last year, he won a $43.2 million first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution at auction and is putting it on display at public venues nationwide.

He has also been active in making sizable donations to institutions including his alma mater, Harvard University, where he famously started his initial trading business in his freshman dorm room. He has broken records with his art and real-estate purchases, including a lavish compound in Florida that the Journal previously reported made up part of a sprawling, $1 billion portfolio of residential real estate for Mr. Griffin.

“Chicago will continue to be important to the future of Citadel, as many of our colleagues have deep ties to Illinois,” Mr. Griffin wrote. “Over the past year, however, many of our Chicago teams have asked to relocate to Miami, New York and our other offices around the world.”

The Citadel move is expected to be a multiyear process. There are currently about 1,000 employees in Chicago and many are expected to remain.

Citadel is one of the most successful hedge-fund firms, managing $51 billion in assets and consistently outpacing competitors via its multistrategy funds after surviving steep losses in the 2008 financial crisis.

Executives at Citadel estimated the value of the hedge-fund business alone was between $5 and $7 billion when it managed much less, the Journal reported in 2019. In January, Citadel Securities agreed to take its first outside investment in a deal valuing the electronic-trading operation at around $22 billion, a move seen at the time as a potential precursor to an initial public offering of the business.

Mr. Griffin and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune and the brother of former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, have had a running feud in recent years, lately over rising violence in Chicago.

In an April interview with the Journal, Mr. Griffin suggested he might move his operations out of Illinois because of a rising crime rate and incidents involving employees in the state’s largest city.

“If people aren’t safe here, they’re not going to live here,” he said then. “I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work. Countless issues of burglary. I mean, that’s a really difficult backdrop with which to draw talent to your city from.”

Caterpillar Inc. said earlier this month it was moving from its longtime Illinois base to Texas. Manufacturers have increasingly turned to the Southwest as a destination for new factories, drawn by available space, appealing tax policies and an expanding technology workforce.

In May, Boeing Co. said it was moving its headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Va., in order to be closer to top federal officials.

Citadel Securities has had a presence in Florida since March 2020, when employees started working from a high-end hotel there at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. In his note to employees, Mr. Griffin said the new headquarters would be on Brickell Bay, “in the heart of Miami’s booming financial district.”

The decision makes Citadel the latest investment firm to move its headquarters or to open an office in a more tax-friendly jurisdiction during the pandemic, as quality-of-life factors took on new importance.

D1 Capital Partners, Elliott Management Corp. and Melvin Capital Management are among the firms that now have a presence in Florida, making it a new satellite of New York and Connecticut for the hedge-fund industry.

“Chicago has been a remarkable home for Citadel,” Mr. Griffin wrote. “I still remember the incredible civic pride and engagement when I arrived more than thirty years ago—and the outreach by business and political leaders who wanted us to succeed and be a part of the fabric of Chicago’s community.”

Data from the Chicago Police Department show that through June 19, murders are down 11% when compared with the same period a year earlier, while thefts are up 65%, motor vehicle thefts are up 40% and burglaries are up 31%.

Mr. Griffin has donated $50 million ahead of Tuesday’s Illinois primary to the campaign of Richard Irvin, a suburban Chicago mayor running for the Republican nomination for governor. He is also a major donor to efforts nationwide to try to help the GOP gain control of Congress in November.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5137205&forum_id=2#44728427)

im from chicago, chi-town.' didnt you grow up in hackensack? 'yeah, but im FROM chicago.'

ive heard versions of this one forever.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5137205&forum_id=2#44728526)

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle delivered a bit of good news ahead of Tuesday’s primary election: her administration’s budget gap forecast is the lowest it’s been since she took office.

As a result, Preckwinkle said Wednesday she’s not planning any new taxes, fines, fees or layoffs in her 2023 budget proposal. “We’re going to just figure out how we can be more effective with the resources that we have,” she said.

Preckwinkle is running for reelection and faces former Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

County finance officials said the projected budget gap heading into the 2023 fiscal year would be just $18.2 million — compared with a total 2023 budget of $8.1 billion — thanks to better than expected revenues from sales taxes, certain corporate income taxes and from fees to the county clerk that have been fueled by the recent construction boom.

In addition, the tight labor market is leading to longer hiring time frames, keeping payroll costs lower, county officials said. Higher revenues and lower expenditures are expected to create a $233 million surplus in the county’s general fund.

Next year’s forecasted gap is a dramatic dip from the height of the pandemic. Preckwinkle’s 2021 budget had a nearly $410 million shortfall, forcing her to tap into the county’s rainy day fund and lay off workers to balance the budget. The following year, revenues rebounded and federal aid helped shrink the deficit to $121 million.

“We entered into this very difficult pandemic period on a really strong financial footing, and as a result we’ve been able to weather it a lot better than other local governments. And we find ourselves now in the position where, as the economy is emerging from some of the pandemic challenges in a really good place,” Preckwinkle told reporters at a Wednesday briefing.

In all, the county received $1 billion from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Commissioners have already authorized nearly $300 million in ARPA spending on programs such as the county’s $42 million guaranteed income pilot initiative and $65 million in grants to violence prevention groups.

But there are possible storm clouds. “There are indications of a recession on the horizon,” county budget director Annette Guzman said, which could lead to significant declines in county sales tax and other economically sensitive revenues.

The county’s health fund could take two other hits in the coming year. The state is expected to restart annual eligibility reviews for Medicaid — known as redetermination — in the coming months. That would likely result in thousands of current patients of Cook County Health’s Medicaid-backed insurance plan, CountyCare, losing their coverage, and the county losing out on reimbursements. That redetermination process could also send more uninsured patients to Cook County’s hospitals and clinics, driving up charity care costs.

The county could also lose out on new enrollees and the revenue that comes with them. Half of the Medicaid managed care patients who don’t choose a provider get automatically enrolled by the state in CountyCare. Officials are planning, conservatively, for that number to drop to 35% — its pre-pandemic level — later this year.

There are other long-term costs. After several years trying to cut down on head count, the number of county workers is up 7% from last year. Over time though, the workforce has shrunk slightly — the county has 23,467 budgeted full-time employees, compared to 23,801 in 2011. And ARPA-funded programs such as the guaranteed income pilot, anti-violence funding, a new behavioral health department and a plan to abolish medical debt are also costly in the long term.

“The ones that are more transformational are probably going to have the highest price tag,” Guzman said.

The county does have fallback cash: Reserves are expected to be as much as $900 million by the end of the year. That’s enough to fund county operations for roughly six months.

Preckwinkle won’t formally introduce her budget until October.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-preckwinkle-budget-forecast-20220623-ztqztrz56bgfjjxlyx6mnvzcdq-story.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5137205&forum_id=2#44728698)

i am extremely pro law and order, my friend. advocated the shooting and hanging of looters during the race riots of 2020.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5137205&forum_id=2#44728629)