Hedge Fund Titan Ken Griffin Was Prepared To Lose 44% On His Record-Breaking Chicago Penthouse

When you’re worth $42.5 Billion, you can afford to take a hit now and again. Hedge Fund manager Ken Griffin has decided to cut ties with Chicago, selling two condos in the Windy City and losing 44% of their value. 

According to property records, Griffin – who founded the Citadel hedge fund – has unloaded the top two floors of condo tower No. 9 Walton for $19 million, having paid over $34 million for them in 2017. What would have been chalked off as just another high-end real estate transaction made headlines because Griffin purchased the four unfinished condos for a record-breaking $58.75 million. He planned to customize them into a showstopping personal residence. Records show that Griffin’s other two floors in the building remain unsold.

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Griffin Cites Chicago Crime For Property Decline

Seven years later, the condos are still unfinished. Griffin has made clear his intention to move Citadel’s HQ from Chicago to Miami after growing frustrated with the spiraling crime in Chicago.

“The decline in value of Chicago real estate is representative of the failed political leadership in Illinois, which is a loss ultimately borne by the state’s people,” Griffin said in a 2022 statement, aiming his criticisms squarely at Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

As a further sign of his disillusionment with the city, he sold his unit at the Waldorf Astoria private residences for $10.2 million, about $3 million less than he paid in 2014. The facts support Griffin’s sentiments about Chicago’s real estate market. A report on GetBurbed.com shows that the median price of condos above $1 million fell 9.1% in the third quarter from the same period of 2021.

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A Record-Breaking International Property Portfolio

Despite the loss in Chicago, Griffin’s overall property portfolio is in good shape. He recently purchased a $90 million estate in the French Riviera, one of the priciest transactions ever in St. Tropez. The four-structure estate previously belonged to late photographer Gunter Sachs, who married Parisian actor and singer Brigitte Bardot from 1966 until 1969.

Griffin has a record of record-breaking real estate transactions. His purchase of a $238 million Manhattan penthouse marked the most expensive home ever sold in the U.S. when he bought the roughly 24,000-square-foot unit in 2019.

The same year, he also purchased a $122 million London mansion once owned by Charles de Gaulle during World War II. The 16,000-square-foot property at 3 Carlton Gardens, near Buckingham Palace, was reportedly the most expensive home sold in that city for nearly a decade. 

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$1 Billion Palm Beach Estate

As if that wasn’t enough, he owns a $60 million Miami Beach penthouse and seven adjacent parcels on Miami’s exclusive Star Island. It’s also reported that Griffin owns over 27 acres of Palm Beach and plans to create a $1 billion estate – of which seven acres will be dedicated to a home for his mother, Catherine Gratz Griffin.

Calvin Klein’s Hamptons Home

No self-respecting billionaire could call their property portfolio complete without a home in the Hamptons. In March 2020, at the pandemic’s start, Griffin paid $84.44 million for an off-market purchase of seven acres at 650 Meadow Lane in Southampton from Calvin Klein, which contains a modern charcoal and glass waterfront structure. His high-rolling neighbors are New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft, fellow hedge fund King Henry Kravis, nightclub and hotel entrepreneur Ian Schrager and fallen Apollo Global cofounder Leon Black – formerly the business partner to Jeffrey Epstein.

In addition, Griffin’s art collection, containing works by Basquiat, Degas, Cézanne and Pollock, is conservatively estimated to be valued at $1 billion.

“Apart from his properties in Chicago, Ken has been very successful with his real estate investments,” said Zia Ahmed, Griffin’s spokesperson. Quite an understatement.

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