How so? If you're running a widget factory, you can't just close it and open again with the same machines and staff under a new name. Your investors would have good reason to sue you. And in any case you're not paid a proportion of your shareholder's returns.

With a fund, which is a separate vehicle advised by a management company, the fund can be closed with the knowledge (typically code, and who is gonna know if you take that?) kept and used to run another fund.

And it needn't be terribly blatant. If a guy has a reputation as a stock picker, he can do something like open a new fund for another geography or sector.

Investors can be strangely loyal, too.