Ex-Citadel Credit Chief Boas Said to Plan New Hedge Fund

Chris Boas, who quit last year as global head of credit at Citadel LLC’s securities unit, is planning to start a hedge fund, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Boas’s Longwood Credit Partners LLP will seek to profit from price differences between debt securities and is scheduled to start in the first quarter of next year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Boas declined to comment when contacted on his mobile phone.

Citadel, the Chicago-based hedge fund run by Ken Griffin, started disbanding its securities business in August 2011, ending a three-year effort to build an investment bank. Patrik Edsparr, who ran the unit and was ousted in 2010, is also starting a hedge fund, two people with knowledge of the plan said last month.

Citadel Securities continues to run its electronic trading and market-making businesses.

Boas hired former Citadel colleague, Keshav Lall as an analyst, the people said. He’s entering the market as 304 hedge funds started in the first quarter, the most in more than four years, according to the latest data from Hedge Fund Research Inc. in Chicago.

Boas was head of credit at Citadel’s hedge-fund business before he ran credit markets at the firm’s securities unit. He had previously worked at Morgan Stanley in that firm’s structured-credit trading business.

Lall worked at Marblegate Asset Management and Deutsche Bank AG before joining Citadel in 2010.

To contact the reporter on this story: Saijel Kishan in New York at skishan@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christian Baumgaertel at cbaumgaertel@bloomberg.net