2010 is turning out to be survival of the fittest as yet another small Singapore-based hedge fund company, Amoeba Capital Partners, brings the shutter down. Despite being up +5.1 per cent this year and an impressive +67 per cent since it was launched in July 2006, the Amoeba Asia Fund is returning capital to investors and closing down at the end of this year, with the firm’s co-founder and CIO, Ashutosh Sinha (ex-Morgan Stanley MD and Head of Asian Investments and Co-Portfolio Manager, Global Emerging Markets) citing “tough” environmental conditions. The fund’s AUM have shrunk from a highpoint of USD750 million to USD135 million, and although performance has been solid, it would seem that this year investors have been more likely to gravitate towards more established heavyweight funds, leaving smaller funds like Amoeba fighting to stay afloat. Hedgeweek spoke to Amoeba’s co-founder, Manish Sinha, but he had nothing further to add to Ashutosh Sinha, who this week told Bloomberg News: “It’s not easy for smaller firms. All the money is going into the large firms. Maybe I’ll be back at some point after a break and see what we can do.” Amoeba combines a thematic investment approach with bottom-up stock ideas to identify the best Equity L/S positions in the fund.