Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Seven Nordic hedge funds have been nominated for this year’s HFM European Emerging Manager Awards. The event honours the best-performing smaller and recently-launched hedge funds based in Europe. The awards ceremony takes place in London on November 26.
Pacific Precious, a multi-strategy hedge fund investing in precious metals, was nominated in the “Commodities” category alongside two other funds. The fund managed by Mattias Gromark gained 14.4 percent year-to-date through the end of September, after advancing over 20 percent during the three summer months due to a strong rally in gold and other precious metals.
Origo Quest 1 and QQM Equity Hedge will compete with four other funds for the top prize in the “Equity: Under $100m” category. Origo Quest 1 is a long/short equity fund focused on Nordic small-cap stocks, whereas QQM Equity Hedge employs a systematic market-neutral strategy designed to capture the correlation between fundamentals and equity prices. Origo Quest 1 was up 11 percent in the first three quarters of 2019, while QQM Equity Hedge gained 7.5 percent during the same period.
Three Nordic fixed-income hedge funds were nominated for the HFM European Emerging Manager Awards. HP Hedge Fixed Income was shortlisted in the “Fixed income: Under $100m” category, whereas Borea Høyrente and Danske Invest Fixed Income Global Value were nominated in the “Fixed income: Over $100m” category. HP Hedge Fixed Income, which predominantly invests in Danish and Swedish mortgage bonds, was launched in October of last year and returned 7.2 percent year-to-date.
Borea Høyrente is a Norwegian fund seeking to exploit the credit spread puzzle, whereas Danske Invest Fixed Income Global Value is the youngest member in Danske Bank Asset Management’s range of four fixed-income hedge funds. The Danske fund managed by chief portfolio manager Søren Mørch currently oversees about €524 million in assets and is up 9.4 percent year-to-date through the end of September.
Formue Nord Markedsneutral, a market-neutral fund focusing on special situations, was shortlisted in the “Multi-strategy” category. At the HFM European Hedge Fund Performance Awards earlier this year, the Danish special situations fund won the prize for the best hedge fund in the “Multi-strategy under $1 billion” category. Formue Nord Markedsneutral returned 13.6 percent last year and gained an additional 12.5 percent year-to-date through the end of September.
The winners of the HFM European Emerging Manager Awards will be selected by a panel comprised of leading institutional investors, private investors, and specialist investment consultants. The shortlisted funds will be judged on absolute performance, as well as standard deviation of returns and performance relative to the relevant HFM benchmark. The judges will also consider the relative assets under management, nature of the investment strategy, track records, and other supporting materials and professional knowledge about the shortlisted funds to pick the winners.
