[JumpCrisscross]

> Citadel just lent someone money to close short positions worth a very significant percentage of their total assets?

Yes. Those other assets are presumably uncorrelated to this short position. If they were fire sold, depending on the assets, they could have gotten 20¢ or 30¢ on the dollar.

That discount gives Melvin the incentive to borrow, even at exorbitant rates. It protects the rest of the portfolio. With the bailout, the GameStop loss is capped and eaten by LPs. That sucks. But it sucks less than eating that loss and selling off the rest of the portfolio for peanuts.

> Melvin did not close their shorts(as they said they did)

You're alleging securities fraud. This may be the case! But we have zero evidence of it. And if Citadel and Point72 invested $3bn to aid and abet securities fraud, that would be quite stupid.

[selectodude]

> You're alleging securities fraud.

I stare at this crap all day and I've seen no indicator that Melvin has closed a large percentage of their position, let alone all of it. I will 100 percent allege securities fraud.

[PicassoCTs]

They got away with worse in 2008?

[fractionalhare]

No "they" didn't. Wall Street is not a homogenous thing. You're thinking of banks in particular, which are about as different from hedge funds categorically as Facebook and Salesforce. Sure they're both tech companies with software products, but they have entirely different business models.

[jachee]

I believe GP was specifically referring to Citadel, nee SAC: https://popular.info/p/the-merry-adventures-of-robinhood

[kgwgk]

You may be confusing SAC / Point72 with Citadel.

[jachee]

Nope it was a joint infusion:

"[Melvin] was rescued with a $2.75 billion cash infusion from two other hedge fund titans, Steve Cohen and Ken Griffin. Cohen was Plotkin's former boss at SAC Capital Management. SAC shuttered after the firm pled guilty to insider trading and paid $1.3 billion in fines. Cohen was not personally charged. Griffin runs Citadel LLC ...

In exchange, Citadel and Point72, the successor firm to SAC, own an undisclosed stake in Melvin Capital Management."

[kgwgk]

I was talking about the "Citadel, nee SAC" bit in your comment.