(REUTERS) - A former portfolio manager at Tudor Investment Corp who oversaw energy investing from Singapore for the giant hedge fund is setting up his own business with a handful of former colleagues, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Mr Andrew McMillan is the latest among a growing number of hedge fund industry executives pursuing dreams to launch their own funds by spinning out from former employers.

One source said the split was friendly between Mr McMillan and Mr Paul Tudor Jones' US$11.6 billion (S$14.3 billion) firm, where the fund manager had worked for a decade since joining from Morgan Stanley where he had specialised in power and gas trading. Mr McMillan will take five ex-Tudor people with him.

Tudor partners are expected to invest with Mr McMillan when he prepares his own fund, said the source.

With Asia remaining a key focus for investors, Tudor has no plans to leave Singapore, however.

The firm has hired Ai Ning Wee from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, one of the world's leading sovereign wealth funds, to work in its Singapore office.

He joins Tudor's Singapore-based global macro portfolio managers Terence Leng and Adrian Khoo.

The focus will be on macro investing, the very bet that made Tudor famous in the three decades since former cotton trader Paul Tudor Jones founded the firm.

Like other funds bruised during the financial crisis, Tudor reorganised in the last few years, including a high-profile split from former star trader James Pallotta who ran the Tudor Raptor fund.

In 2012, the firm's flagship Tudor BVI fund returned 6.27 per cent, less than half the Standard & Poor's 500 gain of 13 per cent.

The spinout from Tudor joins the likes of Mr Alp Ercil, the former Asia head of New York-based Perry Capital, who raised US$940 million for his Asia Research & Capital Management in the biggest hedge fund launch in Asia last year.

Others such as Tybourne Capital, launched by the former Asia head of hedge fund firm Lone Pine Capital, Eashwar Krishnan, and Maso Capital, started by two former managing directors of Och-Ziff Capital Management, Manoj Jain and Sohit Khurana, also joined the fray last year.