Millennium, Citadel bolster staff size as biggest hedge funds keep growing

The big keep getting bigger. The world's largest hedge funds, including Balyasny Asset Management, Citadel and Millennium Management expanded their staff count by hundreds over the past year as they also grew their assets under management.

In a repeat of last year, many multistrategy hedge funds that employ numerous trading teams across a variety of strategies saw the largest staff size growth. All the hedge funds either declined to comment or did not respond to a request for comment on staff size.

Many hedge funds report year-end 2024 figures in their 2025 ADV filings. Firms are required to list all full- and part-time workers except for clerical staff. Pensions & Investments compared new Form ADV filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late March with filings from the prior year in order to tally staff size changes.

Over the last few years, many hedge funds have been hiring as they add new businesses, in areas including private credit, systematic credit, commodities and foreign exchange, said Roark Stahler, managing director and head of strategic consulting Americas at Barclays' prime services business.

“The size is orthogonal. As they grow, they become more complex with more people in treasury and operations — it’s a function of running a bigger business,” he said. “Most of that scales. What doesn’t scale is the portfolio managers, and that is why they need to hire more and more of them… They want non-correlated returns from those PMs.”

It’s an observation echoed by recruiters.

“I don’t think there has been outsized hiring, there are upgrades as usual and additional head count,” said Alexis DuFresne, founder of Archer Search Partners, an alternatives recruiting firm focused on front office search. “At the biggest multistrats, they are building out other product suites … those businesses that are branching to other investing arenas, that’s where we are seeing hiring.”

But it’s a good time to be a sought-after portfolio manager because demand is insatiable at the same time assets under management are increasing at the biggest hedge funds, said Neal Berger, chief investment officer at Eagle’s View Capital Management, a longtime allocator to multistrategy hedge funds, in an email.

“The talent war has escalated the acquisition cost of highly sought-after portfolio managers in the form of upfront guarantees, higher performance-based compensation, phantom equity, and other desirable perks to entice talent,” he said. “It’s challenging for smaller funds to acquire the best and brightest talent as they simply cannot compete with the large funds.”

Staff size growth accompanied assets under management growth at many of the largest hedge funds.

Some hedge funds provided clarifications on their assets under management reported in their Form ADV filings to encompass their full businesses or affiliates.

Israel "Izzy" Englander’s Millennium is among the largest hedge funds, managing $72.4 billion at the end of 2024 with a staff of 6,140. Back in 2018, Millennium’s staff size numbered 2,443.

Ken Griffin’s Citadel grew to 3,153 employees, up from 2,932 employees, and was managing $63.6 billion at the end of 2024.

Dmitry Balyasny’s eponymous hedge fund upped its staff size to 2,063 from 1,857 the prior year.

Balyasny said last year that he personally spends a lot of time on recruiting and interviewing talent and that the firm typically spends about 1% of assets under management annually on talent acquisition. Balyasny had $23.6 billion in assets under management as of March 1.

AQR Capital Management again added employees, growing to 626 from 573. The firm manages over $114.3 billion in assets.

D.E. Shaw Group’s saw a slight tick up in staff to 928 from 879 last year with over $65 billion in assets under management. The firm opened a new office in San Francisco in February.

Steve Cohen’s $36.9 billion Point72 Asset Management saw a slight uptick in staff to 2,951 from 2,872 the year prior. Cohen in January discussed building out a private credit division and building funds beyond hedge funds.

Bridgewater Associates saw a slight uptick to 1,216 employees from 1,196 in its 2024 ADV filing. The hedge fund is now managing $92.1 billion after restricting and reducing assets in its Pure Alpha fund to between $50 billion to $60 billion, down from $70 billion to $80 billion, according to Financial Times reporting.

Verition Fund Management also added staff members, growing to 749 from 524 in its most recent SEC filing. The $11.5 billion firm has seen rapid growth from a headcount of 279 at the end of 2022.

Two Sigma saw its employee count dip slightly to 1,700, counting its affiliates, from over 2,000 the year before. The firm has over $60 billion in assets under management.

Schonfeld Strategic Advisors saw a slight drop in staff to 872 from 952 the year prior. The firm was managing $12 billion to start off 2025.

Hedge funds will remain focused on finding an edge in hiring, said Paul Barker, founder and managing director of Pellian, a hedge fund-focused search firm.

“There is a steady stream of activity across all strategies, with perhaps some bias depending on the core strength of the fund whether that be equities, macro, credit or commodities. However funds are being highly selective on adding PM talent, with the emphasis on finding an edge - either big senior risk takers, or new differentiated (e.g. quant/systematic) strategies.”