Guggenheim Partners is keeping most of its Chicago offices closed, with a number of employees relocating, the latest symbolic blow to a city reeling from the high-profile exit of Ken Griffin’s Citadel.
(Bloomberg) — Guggenheim Partners is keeping most of its Chicago offices closed, with a number of employees relocating, the latest symbolic blow to a city reeling from the high-profile exit of Ken Griffin’s Citadel.
“Guggenheim’s Chicago offices were closed in 2020 during Covid. No units, with the exception of one subsidiary, have reopened nor plan to reopen,” the company, which has over $300 billion under management, said in an emailed statement. “A number of Guggenheim employees have relocated already.”
Crain’s Chicago Business reported on Monday the company was close to a decision on moving to Miami. But the company, which has headquarters in Chicago and New York, said it has no plans to relocate its base and stressed “there has been no downsizing in Chicago.”
“There’s no formal relocation to Florida,” Dina DiLorenzo, co-president at Guggenheim Investments and a managing partner at Guggenheim Partners, said in an interview. “I’m co-president, so I would know.”
Guggenheim is allowing employees to work where they want, which has led some to relocate, she said. Guggenheim has more than a dozen other offices in the US and overseas and more than 2,100 employees worldwide. One unit, Guggenheim Securities, remains open in Chicago, according to a person familiar with the matter, with about 100 employees.
Mark Walter, Guggenheim’s chief executive officer and co-founder who’s been based in Chicago, has no plans to move to Miami, DiLorenzo said. Walter, the majority owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team, owns White Oak Conservation, a wildlife preserve outside Jacksonville, Florida.
Chicago and its suburbs have been hit recently by the loss of companies including Citadel, plane maker Boeing Co. and manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. Griffin took his company, founded in Chicago more than three decades ago, to Miami, bringing along hundreds of employees and his family.
Griffin, who donated in excess of $600 million to organizations in the Windy City over several decades, was vocal in blaming violence for moving Citadel and market maker Citadel Securities.
Some of those fears have been echoed by CME Group Inc. head Terry Duffy, who recently told the ICE House Podcast about how his wife was carjacked during the middle of the day. Concerns over a failure to reduce crime contributed to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s electoral defeat this year, the first time an incumbent lost since 1983.
The city though turned to Brandon Johnson, a progressive who was the only candidate who refused to pledge to restaff the police force.
And the news hasn’t all been negative.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google bought a downtown building the size of a city block and food giant Kellogg Co. also announced that the snack division, the biggest piece as the company splits into three, would locate its headquarters in Chicago.
“We are confident in the city’s strength as a hub for business and innovation,” the Mayor’s office said in a statement. “We are also bullish on Chicago’s financial industry that generates $53 billion annually and employs over 240,000 people.”
(Updates with statement from the city in last paragraph.)
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