Nordic HFs Among the World’s Best

Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Several Nordic hedge funds beat most of their global peers in their respective strategy categories over the past three years. HCP Focus, Asgard Fixed Income Fund, Danske Invest Hedge Fixed Income Strategies, and Shepherd Energy Portfolio feature in BarclayHedge’s latest quarterly rankings, which present the top ten (sometimes 20) best performing funds across over 20 different strategies based on previous three- or five-year returns.

Out of 363 funds, Finnish HCP Focus ranked as the third-best performing long-only equity hedge fund in the world over the previous three years that ended June with an annualized return of 22.8 percent. Managed by portfolio manager Ernst Grönblom (pictured), HCP Focus maintains a very concentrated portfolio of businesses benefiting from the notion of demand-side economies of scale, including Facebook, Amazon.com, and PayPal. During the previous 14 quarters, HCP Focus reached the top ten list 11 times and currently holds the record for most appearances in this list. Over the three-year period through the end of the first quarter of 2019, HCP Focus ranked as the best performing long-only equity hedge fund (read more).

With an annualized return of 10 percent in the past three years, Asgard Fixed Income Fund ranked as the third-best in the “Fixed Income Arbitrage” category. Danske Invest Hedge Fixed Income Strategies closely followed suit in the fourth position with an annualized return of 8.6 percent. The number of eligible funds in this category was 26. Asgard Fixed Income Fund seeks to capitalize on relative-value fixed income investment opportunities, predominantly in Scandinavian fixed income markets. Managed by Michael Petry, head of hedge funds at Danske Bank Asset Management, Danske Invest Hedge Fixed Income Strategies is a relative-value fund investing in fixed income markets.

Shepherd Energy Portfolio 2X, a leveraged version of Stockholm-based trend-follower Shepherd Energy Portfolio that focuses on trading futures in the Nordic power market, ranked tenth in the list of top 20 CTA performers in the past five years. The fund generated an annualized return of 16.8 percent over the previous five years. Shepherd Energy Portfolio 2X competed within a group of 410 eligible funds.

Only hedge funds with a track record of at least three years and assets under management of at least $10 million are eligible for inclusion in the Barclay Managed Funds Report.