Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Several days after announcing that two hedge funds from the Graal family will be merged into Aktie-Ansvar Räntestrategi, Aktie-Ansvar has announced that Graal will be merged into the same fixed-income fund. Graal, once Sweden’s largest hedge fund with about SEK 12 billion under management, will merge into the newly-launched Aktie-Ansvar Räntestrategi at the end of October.
“Graal currently has a significant focus on fixed-income management and follows essentially the same investment strategy as Aktie-Ansvar Räntestrategi,” writes a letter accompanying the merger announcement. “Aktie-Ansvar has found it logical that Graal should be merged by way of absorption into Aktie-Ansvar Räntestrategi,” the letter continues. Similar to the recently-announced mergers of Graal Aktiehedge and Graal Offensiv, the letter adds that “the background to this decision is that major investors have announced significant withdrawals from the fund and that the size of the fund does not justify the fund’s management costs.” Graal had €32.4 million in assets under management at the end of June.
Both Graal and Aktie-Ansvar Räntestrategi are managed by Maria Ljungqvist, who co-managed Aktie-Ansvar’s Graal fund family alongside Philip Wendt for four years before taking sole responsibility for managing the three-fund suite in mid-April this year. Ljungqvist has been responsible for managing the fixed-income portfolios of the Graal funds since joining Aktie-Ansvar in early 2016. Aktie-Ansvar Räntestrategi, which was launched in mid-June this year, can adapt its investment strategy to prevailing market conditions and has the opportunity to invest in fixed-income securities with both high and low credit risk, as well as long or short maturities across the Nordic region and globally.
Since Maria Ljungqvist and Philip Wendt joined Aktie-Ansvar in 2016, Graal Hedgefond has, on average, maintained a net exposure to equities of 20 percent, with the remaining capital being allocated to an actively-managed fixed-income portfolio. Carl Bergenstråhle of Aktie-Ansvar told HedgeNordic in April that “during February, we decided to reduce the equity exposure to zero given the poor risk-reward.” Graal generated an annualized return of about three percent since launching during the summer of 2002.