Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin said there’s a possibility that Miami could one day overtake New York’s Wall Street as as financial firms worried about rising crime rates migrate to the Sunshine State’s business-friendly climate and its lower taxes.
“Miami, I think, represents the future of America,” said Griffin, praising the city’s “Incredibly vibrant economy” in remarks at the Citadel Securities Global Macro Conference in Miami, according to a transcript obtained by The Post.
“We’ll see how big Wall Street South becomes,” Griffin added in remarks that were earlier reported by Bloomberg, “We’re on Brickell Bay, and maybe in 50 years it will be Brickell Bay North how we refer to New York in finance.”
Miami has become a hub for finance titans like Griffin, who decamped his firm from crime-ravaged Chicago to Miami last June and recently splashed out on a $107 million home in Coconut Grove.
That was after Carl Icahn’s Icahn Capital Management ditched its posh Manhattan digs atop Fifth Avenue’s General Motors Building in favor of a 14-story office complex in a Miami suburb in August 2020.
Hedge fund tycoon Paul Singer’s Elliott Management — which oversees a total of $59.2 billion after shaking up investment targets including AT&T, Twitter and the government of Argentina — also moved its headquarters from Midtown Manhattan to West Palm Beach, Fla., in October 2020.
In all, 160 Wall Street firms have moved out of the Big Apple in recent years — 56 of which took their business to Florida, sucking a whopping $1 trillion in financial assets under management out of Manhattan.
Citadel’s decampment to the Sunshine State was reportedly motivated by Florida’s business-friendly climate and tax advantages, and concerns about rising crime rates in Chicago, people familiar with Griffin’s thinking said at the time.
The $51 billion firm is now spreading its wings across six floors in the 830 Brickell Tower Building, which only recently finished construction this year in Brickell, largely considered the financial district of Southern Florida.
Though Griffin has seemingly gone all-in on Florida, he’s still maintaining a considerable presence in New York, which hasn’t lost its business to Miami just yet.
“The density of talent both in financial services and writ-large in New York City is amongst the top of the world,” Griffin said.
“It is really is the epicenter of thoughtful people passionately engaged in their careers.”
Citadel is planning to build a 1,350-foot Manhattan skyscraper — which extends higher than the top floor of the Empire State Building — comprised of 51 office floors and seven terraces, according to Bloomberg.
The new office space at 350 Park Ave. is expected to be completed in 2032.
Griffin, who’s worth a $35.5 billion, according to Bloomberg, is also spearheading a construction project in Palm Beach, where he plans to build a palatial property on the 27 acres of prime Palm Beach waterfront he recently scooped up.
When the ambitious renovation is complete — which is expected to run Griffin as much as $400 million — his mega-estate will be worth an estimated $1 billion, making it the most expensive home on the planet.
This colossal property will be situated just a quarter mile south of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, a stretch of South Ocean Boulevard renowned among locals as “Billionaires’ Row.”
It’s unclear when exactly the mammoth mansion will be complete, which comes after the 55-year-old purchased a four-acre, $106,875,000 compound in Coconut Grove around this time last year.
Representatives at Citadel declined to comment beyond Griffin’s commentary on Tuesday.
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