Citadel; Kent Phillips/Walt Disney World Resort via Getty Images
- Citadel's Ken Griffin treated roughly 1,200 staffers and family members to a visit to Tokyo Disneyland.
- The event, honoring Citadel's 30th anniversary and Citadel Securities' 20th, also included a Maroon 5 concert.
- Griffin, worth $35.4 billion, treated staff to a Disney World trip and Coldplay concert last year.
Hedge fund boss Ken Griffin paid for more than 1,000 Citadel and Citadel Securities employees and family members to go to Disney in Tokyo last week in honor of the companies' recent anniversaries.
The roughly 1,200 attendees, including about 300 children, received tickets to Walt Disney World Tokyo, including Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea, and saw musical performances by Maroon 5 and Calvin Harris, the company told Insider. Bloomberg first reported the news.
Attendees at the celebration, held October 27-29, came from six of the companies' offices in Asia Pacific: Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Gurugram. Citadel founder Griffin, worth $35.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, covered the costs of travel, hotels, food, Disney tickets, entertainment, and childcare, the company said.
Griffin spoke at the anniversary celebration Saturday before introducing Maroon 5.
"Today, the range of talent we have brought together is simply astonishing. We've created not one, but two firms at the forefront of the industry. Together, we have imagined and built the future of finance," he said.
The extravaganza honored Citadel's 30th anniversary in 2020, which the company did not celebrate with an event at the time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Citadel Securities' 20th anniversary last year.
US, Canada, and Europe employees of the companies marked Citadel Securities' 20th anniversary in 2022 with a trip to Disney World and Universal Studios, as well as a Coldplay concert, but COVID-19 restrictions in parts of Asia kept many APAC employees from attending. Roughly 10,000 people, including 2,500 children, attended last year's event, which Griffin also covered.