Tudor Alumnus McMillan Said to Hire Amy Lee for Firm

Andrew McMillan, who ran a commodity team at Tudor Investment Corp., hired Singapore lawyer Amy Lee to help run the investment firm he plans to start this year, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Lee, currently head of Hogan Lovells Lee & Lee, will become chief executive officer of Stewart Asia Investment Ltd., said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The Singapore-based firm will initially run a commodity hedge fund and plans to add other Asia-focused strategies, they said. McMillan and Lee declined to comment.

McMillan is starting his firm as the Asian hedge fund industry seeks to recover from $3 billion in withdrawals last year, according to an estimate by Singapore-based Eurekahedge Pte. The number of new funds starting out of Asia fell 28 percent in 2012 even as regional managers beat global peers.

“Appetite for Asia funds is now starting to increase again as the prospect of a hard landing in China diminishes,” said Ronen Schwartzman, founder of Ten Capital Advisors LLC, a New York-based firm that advises clients on hedge fund investment.

Lee, 53, runs a joint venture between Singapore-based law firm Lee & Lee and Hogan Lovells, according to the firm’s website. Lee Kim Yew, her father, co-founded Lee & Lee with his brother Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, and Kwa Geok Choo, the late wife of Lee Kuan Yew, the website says.

McMillan’s Team

McMillan, 47, ran a team of eight people at Tudor and left the hedge fund at the end of December after about a decade, said one of the people. About half of his team may join his new venture, the person said.

Craig Mitchell, 44, a former senior vice president at Los Angeles-based The Capital Group Companies, Inc., will also join Stewart Asia to run a strategy investing in Asian equities, according to one of the people.

Tudor, the $11.6 billion hedge fund run by billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, will be an investor in McMillan’s new firm, a person familiar with his departure said last month.

New Zealand-born McMillan joined Tudor in 2002 from Morgan Stanley where he was the head of European gas and power trading in London. He previously worked at Barclays Plc. McMillan graduated from New Zealand’s Lincoln University with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture.

Lee graduated with a bachelor’s degree in law from the National University of Singapore in 1982, according to her biography on the website of Clifford Capital Pte Ltd., where she is a non-executive director.

Commodities tracked by the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index of 24 raw materials rose 4.5 percent in January, the biggest monthly increase since August. The gauge has increased 4.5 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chanyaporn Chanjaroen in Singapore at cchanjaroen@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net