Exclusive - Ex-Moore Capital manager Findley's hedge fund Bramshott to close-sources

By Nishant Kumar and Simon Jessop

LONDON (Reuters) - Hedge fund Bramshott Capital, led by former Moore Capital portfolio manager Paul Findley, is shutting down, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

One of the sources said the key reason for the closure was the fund's 1 percent return in 2014, compared with 15.5 percent in 2013, when it outperformed its peers' average 12 percent gain, as measured by industry data tracker Eurekahedge.

The Bramshott Europe Fund bets on rising and falling prices in regional equities. It was spun out of Moore Capital in May 2011 and managed about $425 million in October last year, a letter to investors obtained by Reuters showed.

The fund's 2014 returns compare with a 0.6 percent rise in the Eurekahedge Europe Long Short Equities Hedge Fund Index.

Bramshott Chief Operating Officer Rupert Mahon declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Findley joined Moore in 2008 after working for a decade at Threadneedle Asset Management.

Hedge funds have been hit in recent months by poor returns and rising costs due to a growing regulatory burden.As many as 661 hedge funds shuttered globally through the end of September last year, data from industry tracker HFR showed. Money managers including Brevan Howard, BlueBay and OVS Capital Management all shut down hedge funds last year.

In Europe, investors pulled about $15 billion from hedge funds in the second half of the year after investing about $35 billion in the first half, data from Eurekahedge showed.

Net inflows for hedge funds in the region for 2013, when European long/short equities hedge fund returned more than 12 percent, stood at $64 billion, Eurekahedge data showed.

(Reporting by Nishant Kumar and Simon Jessop; Editing by Alex Smith and Susan Thomas)