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cated at Harvard University as an undergraduate. One thing differentiates him, however—his age. He is only 32 years old—the youngest of the managers interviewed. Furthermore, he started his first hedge fund at the earliest age—18—during his second year of college. As a freshman, he had traded options. This led to arbitrage trading, which led to convertible bond trading. In September 1987, as a sophomore, he launched his first hedge fund—Convertible Hedge Fund 1—with $265,000. The next month, during the crash of 1987, Griffin made money. He completed his Harvard degree in three years, and by the time he graduated he was managing $1 million.

The initial spark occurred at Harvard when he was about 17 years old. Griffin read an article in Forbes about the Home Shopping Network, that discussed how the stock was overpriced; Griffin bought a few put contracts. He profited as the stock declined and made a few thousand dollars. Griffin realized that the quality of the market maker's profit was greater than his own. This experience motivated him to learn more about options pricing theory.

During his college days, Griffin's role model was Carl Icahn, the leveraged buyout icon of the 1980s. Griffin's goal after graduation was to work at a firm like Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts (KKR). He recalls meeting with a Harvard alumnus at a Boston bank. They talked about arbitrage and price relationships. The alumnus's firm focused on convertible bond arbitrage for its own proprietary money but did not recommend it to clients. This stayed in the mind of the 18-year-old Griffin as he formulated future plans.

In 1990, Griffin started the predecessor to Citadel Investment Group with approximately $4.6 million. The company focused initially on convertible bond arbitrage in the United States. Japan became an early focus as well. Most of his investors were entrepreneurs.

Ten years later, assets under management are about $5.0 billion in five funds. Two funds are for U.S. investors, and three are for non-U.S. investors.

There are over 250 investors. Griffin's clients are roughly 60 percent non-U.S. and 40 percent U.S. The global client base is represented strongly by Japan, Europe, and Southeast Asia. About 40 percent of the clients are institutions, while the remainder is split approximately evenly between family offices and fund of funds entities. According to