Hedge fund giant Citadel is having a brutal year

Citadel, the $25 billion Chicago-headquartered hedge fund led by Ken Griffin, fell 8% through March 11, Bloomberg News reports citing sources familiar with the matter.

The average hedge fund has fallen 3.08% this year, according to HFR.

Citadel uses a multimanager structure where several portfolio managers run independent funds with different strategies. Multimanagers are known for having strict risk constraints for their portfolio managers.

About three quarters of the fund's losses came from the fund's Surveyor Capital arm, the report said.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the Surveyor arm cut around a dozen of its 200 employees in the wake of losses at the beginning of the year. The unit also replaced its longtime head, Jon Venetos, back in January.

Surveyor runs a global long/short equity multimanager strategy with portfolios organized by sector groups.

"Surveyor Capital portfolio managers use a fundamental, bottom-up research process, primary due diligence and intensive modeling to construct portfolios that focus on alpha generation while remaining beta-neutral," according to Citadel's website.

Citadel declined to comment.