Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – In this magazine, we summarize The Highlights from the 2019 Nordic Hedge Award. The character of the final event to the Nordic Hedge Award is very old school, low tech and sees people interacting, shaking hands, exchanging business cards, sharing laughs and war stories. Looking back, the period of mid-February to mid-March, trying to come to awareness if and how Covid-19 would affect us at all, to debating and deciding on – in a first step – how to proceed with the event, and then if to proceed at all. It was a downhill process going from “we’ll ask everyone to wash their hands and suggest a no-hand-shaking- policy” to realizing there is no way we can responsibly and safely gather 150 people who have just been flying in from every corner of the planet in one room.
The solution then was to create a virtual event. We posted the winners their trophies, often to their homes, interviewed them by phone and invited the managers to send us pictures of themselvess with their trophies. We are still hopeful we can all gather to mingle and share a drink or two after the summer, hopefully in better times.
An award ceremony, beside all the gloom, should of course be a time of celebration. Heartfelt cheers therefore go out to those managers ending up as the winners of the 2019 Nordic Hedge Award – congratulations! Last year I had quoted Billie Ocean in my editor’s note saying “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Well, I guess the managers had their fair chance to show their going in these last weeks and we will be counting up those scores, too, for the 2020 Nordic Hedge Award.
A cornerstone of the methodology used to determine the best Nordic hedge funds is the jury board to the Nordic Hedge Award, typically recruited among Nordic institutional investors. For the 2019 evaluation, we were privileged to win Veronica Whalberg (AP3), Linsay McPhater (Nordea), Pontus von Essen (AP7), Mattias Ledunger (Praktikerinvest), Gustav Karner (Apoteket ́s Pension Fund) and Mika Jaatinen (Elo) who dedicated their time and expertise ranking the managers.
The “Rookie of the Year” award has its own jury board put together of Nordic hedge fund managers, who also commit time and effort to the cause. A very warm thank you to you Jonas Sandefeldt (QQM), Rasmus Viggers (Formue Nord), Per Ivarsson (RPM), Staffan Östlin (Adrigo) and to last year’s Rookie, Bo Andersen (SEB).
We have been very fortunate to have strong, loyal, long term partners who express their bonds and dedication to the Nordic alternative investment space next to many other channels, initiatives and their daily work also through the Nordic Hedge Award. This year, more than ever, these relations were invaluable to us. My sincere gratitude goes to CME Group, who appeared as lead sponsor, Northern Trust, RBC I&TS, Harvest Advokatbyra, Efficient Capital and last but not least, The AMX – who partnered with the Nordic Hedge Award for the first time. Thank you all for your support and guidance!
Please find here the summary with all the winners, runners up, jury members, statistics and much more from the – very different – 2019 Nordic Hedge Award: 2019 Nordic Hedge Award – The Highlights
