Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Almost a year after one-man shop Symmetry Invest hired a second portfolio manager, the Aalborg-based asset manager has expanded further with the hiring of Casper Munksø Thomsen as a chief financial officer. Thomsen joined Andreas Aaen’s Symmetry Invest in mid-June this summer after spending eight years at Danish advisory and accounting firm BDO Denmark.
“On June 15, I said goodbye to the audit industry and went to the other side when I started as CFO for Symmetry Invest.”
“On June 15, I said goodbye to the audit industry and went to the other side when I started as CFO for Symmetry Invest,” Casper Munksø Thomsen writes on LinkedIn. “I have been looking forward to this and I look forward to being part of the journey in an exciting company,” he continues. “However, at the same time, it also meant that I had to wave goodbye to BDO. It has been a difficult decision after almost eight years in a fantastic workplace where I have been lucky to meet my wife and have amazing acquaintances.”
Thomsen has joined founder and co-portfolio manager Andreas Aaen and portfolio manager Henrik Abrahamson, who joined Symmetry Invest in August of last year. The Aalborg-based asset manager runs long/short equity fund Symmetry Invest, which currently ranks as this year’s best performing Nordic hedge fund with a return of 33.2 percent for the first half of 2021. The fund has delivered an annualized return of 24.1 percent since launching in early 2013.
Symmetry Invest is a long-biased long/short equity fund running with a net market exposure between 60 to 80 percent, with the long portfolio housing between 12 to 18 names and the short portfolio including from 15 and up to 40 names. The team’s investment approach focuses on finding “compounding machines” in the universe of smaller-sized businesses across the Nordics, the rest of Europe and the United States. Andreas Aaen and his co-portfolio manager are predominantly looking for smaller businesses with a sustainable competitive advantage in a small yet expanding market niche. Such businesses tend to be founder-led companies with a founder that acts as chief executive, president, board member or holds some other position of significant influence.
