Something for the weekend: Ken Griffin, founder of hedge fund and trading business Citadel and Citadel Securities, has thanked 10,000 employees by flying them out to Walt Disney World in Florida for three days, as well as hiring famous musicians to play at the business’ corporate party.
As well as hiring Disney World exclusively for Citadel employees to visit, billionaire Griffin paid the fares for staff and their families to fly to Florida from New York, Houston, Paris, Zurich and other cities, as well as funding their hotels, park tickets and meals.
In order to celebrate his trading firm Citadel Securities’ 20th anniversary, his hedge fund’s 32nd anniversary, and to thank staff for a year of hard work and high returns, Griffin threw a corporate party for the workforce, hiring Coldplay and Carly Rae Jepsen to perform, with Diplo on the DJ decks.
Videos posted on social media app TikTok showed employees in formal attire dancing to Coldplay and being sprayed with confetti, with users lauding the firm for going above and beyond, and even suggesting it was the best party they had ever attended.
TikTok user Anisha said: “Citadel won corporate holiday party of the year.”
According to the firm, its Asia-based employees will get a separate celebration next year.
The hedge fund firm, which manages $59 billion (£48.2 billion) in assets, revealed that its flagship Wellington fund returned roughly 32% through the end of November, a higher figure than that achieved at many other Wall Street firms. Griffin himself is worth about $31.7 billion (£25.9 billion), according to the Forbes Rich List, making him the 40th richest person in the world.
Here at Employee Benefits, we think this sounds like a magical way to reward employees for their hard work!