Tybourne Capital Management, the Asia-based investment firm founded by Eashwar Krishnan, is set to return external capital in its long-only funds following the shuttering of its US technology hedge fund earlier this year, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The report cites a letter to investors dated 6 February as confirming Krishnan’s decision to wind down the Tybourne Long Opportunities funds. The letter did not provide specific reasons for the move or disclose the current assets under management (AUM) in the funds, although an unnamed source familiar with the matter attributed the decision to personal reasons, while Catherine Cheung, Tybourne’s Chief Operating Officer, declined to comment.
A regulatory filing from March 2024 had pegged the combined AUM of the long-only funds at $1.3bn.
With this latest development, Tybourne will no longer manage external client capital in public markets. Instead, the firm will focus on its late-stage private equity funds, led by Bosun Hau, which each manage between $250m and $300m in assets. Tybourne will retain a smaller team to oversee its partners’ investments in public markets, according to the source
At its peak in late 2021, Tybourne managed $8bn and was seen as one of Asia’s biggest hedge fund success stories.
However, the firm has faced challenges in recent years, including the closure of its $2.8bn hedge fund in late 2021. At the time, Tybourne cited difficulties in profiting from bearish bets, particularly in the wake of the GameStop short-squeeze episode, which caused heavy losses for several hedge funds, including New York-based Melvin Capital Management.
Earlier this year, Tybourne closed its two-year-old $200m US technology hedge fund, Westbourne Long Short, after its San Francisco-based manager, Sebastian Zahedi, departed for Millennium.
