Hedge fund giant Citadel is building out a new unit with big hires

Hedge fund giant Citadel has hired three staffers in its build out a fresh investment unit.

The group is headed by Eric Felder, who was hired from Magnetar earlier this year. The team, which invests across various asset classes, is set to grow to 20 to 25 investment professionals, and was called Fundamental Strategies when it was announced earlier this year.

Citadel has hired the following to the new team:

• Michael Doniger started earlier this month as director of research. He will lead the equities component of the unit. He previously consulted for Anandar Capital, was co-CIO at Green Owl Capital, was a partner at Corvex Management, and a portfolio manager at SAC Capital's CR Intrinsic unit, per a LinkedIn profile.
• Neel Gupta started this month as a portfolio manager focused on equities. Gupta was previously a portfolio manager focusing on event driven equities at Pine River Capital, according to a LinkedIn page, and also worked at HBK Capital and Goldman Sachs.
• Jeff Psaki, who previously worked under Felder at Magnetar, is expected to join later this year leading the credit component of the strategy, according to people familiar with the matter. Psaki most recently worked at Magnetar as a portfolio manager and head of credit, within the firm's fundamental strategies unit. He earlier worked at Goldman Sachs and Barclays.

Citadel's new unit focuses on opportunistic investment ideas across the capital structure. The group will feed into Citadel's two main funds, Kensington and Wellington. Citadel manages $27 billion firmwide.

Citadel earlier this year closed down one of its stock picking units, Ravelin Capital, which was based in San Francisco.