RPT-UPDATE 1-Blackstone-seeded Senrigan quadruples, soft closes

(Repeats an item first published on Jan. 10)

* Senrigan Master Fund's assets above $800 mln -sources

* Investors in pipeline may help grow fund above $1 bln (Adds further details, background)

By Nishant Kumar

HONG KONG, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) seeded hedge fund Senrigan Capital has closed its event-driven fund to new investors, two people familiar with the matter said, after more than quadrupling assets to above $800 million in 2010.

Asia-focused Senrigan Master Fund, launched by former Citadel executive Nick Taylor in 2009, was close to attracting more assets from existing investors that would take assets to more than $1 billion, one of the sources said.

"They have people in the pipeline so I wouldn't be surprised to see them above $1 billion over the next couple of months," said one of the sources, who declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.

Attempts to reach Taylor and Hong Kong-based Senrigan were not successful.

The $800-million-plus assets make Senrigan Master Fund one of the biggest hedge funds in Asia and also among the few to substantially grow assets in 2010 when many hedge funds struggled to gather assets.

Private equity firm Blackstone has seeded the fund with $150 million.

Event-driven funds focus on mergers and strategies such as capital structure arbitrage, where managers can profit from anomalies in a firm's capital structure, for instance by buying a high-yield bond and shorting the equity, thereby hedging out equity risk.

Senrigan Master Fund joins the likes of Hong Kong-based Prime Capital Management that has soft closed or stopped accepting money from new investors in its $1.4 billion Greater China long short equity fund. [ID:nTOE70607S]

Janchor Partners Pan Asian Fund has also stopped marketing the fund to new investors after gathering $500 million, Bloomberg reported on Monday, while Hong Kong-based HT Capital Advisors has closed subscriptions to HT Asian Alpha Amoeba Fund.

Hedge fund managers generally turn away investors for fear that running big funds would harm returns. (Reporting by Nishant Kumar; Editing by Chris Lewis, Mike Nesbit)