Moore Capital Management alumnus Gaurav Grover is shutting down his Hong Kong-based hedge fund firm Trikon Asset Management Ltd. after about five years, said people with knowledge of the matter.

Grover is taking a break to spend more time with his family and does not plan to retire, the people added, asking not to be identified discussing private matters. The firm started to notify investors and counterparties about three weeks ago, even though there was client interest to expand its assets through other products, said one of the people.

Grover declined to comment.

Grover helped set up Moore’s Asia office in Hong Kong in 2010 and was a senior portfolio manager at Louis Bacon’s hedge fund firm. He started Trikon with members of his Moore investing team. It was one of the most promising startups of 2018, counting among its early investors some partners of his former employers, including TPG-Axon Capital Management LP and Silver Lake Management LLC.

Trikon’s hedge fund was up 2.9% this year through August, bettering the flat return of a Eurekahedge gauge tracking Asia-Pacific funds that bet on rising and falling stocks. Flat in its first two months of trading in 2018, the Trikon fund made money in the next three years. Last year, it dipped 1.3%, according to a newsletter seen by Bloomberg News.

Grover’s decision was unrelated to the state of the Asian stock markets or mounting geopolitical tensions, the people said. Regulatory uncertainty in China and a slowdown of the world’s second-largest economy have combined with the US-China spat and rising interest rates to wreak havoc on regional hedge fund performance.

Asia-focused hedge funds on average had the worst annual loss since 2008 last year, according to a Eurekahedge Pte index. More than two-thirds of them lost money in 2022, Preqin Ltd. data showed. They have again struggled to make money this year. Investors redeemed $7.5 billion out of Asia-based funds in the first nine months, more than triple the amount in 2022, eVestment estimated.