Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Swedish hedge fund manager Proxy P Management AB has strengthened its investment team with the hiring of Gustav Åkesson as a Quant Analyst, just as its energy transition-focused fund achieved its best month on record. Proxy Renewable Long/Short Energy Fund advanced 14.5 percent in October, its best month since launching in late 2018, to bring the fund’s yearly performance back in positive territory at 13.5 percent.
“Gustav Åkesson joined the team as Quant Analyst earlier this fall. The team is expanding and we are immensely happy to have Gustav among us,” Proxy P Management announces on LinkedIn. Åkesson joins the Stockholm-based asset manager after finishing his Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering at Linköping University.
“Gustav Åkesson joined the team as Quant Analyst earlier this fall. The team is expanding and we are immensely happy to have Gustav among us.”
Åkesson is part of Proxy P Management’s team of quants that maintains “an in-house-developed proprietary portfolio and risk management system that resembles a very advanced database that we can extract almost anything from,” according to CEO Dan Lindström. “The system supports us in everything, from company analysis to portfolio management, risk management and sizing of positions,” Lindström explained previously.
Proxy P’s fund invests globally in the energy transition and aims to identify and invest in sustainable companies that support decarbonisation and a carbon-free economy. After booking a full-year advance of about 46 percent in 2019 and 83 percent in 2020, the long/short equity fund is up 13.5 percent year-to-date through the end of October. Proxy Renewable Long/Short Energy Fund, which has generated an annualized return of 42 percent since inception through October, will achieve its 3-year track record in December this year.
The month of October was the fund’s best performing month since its inception in December 2018. “Solar and storage sub-sectors made strong recoveries after having underperformed year to date. The majority of fund returns over the month came from the solar sub-sector followed by storage and efficiency,” the investment team at Proxy led by Jonas Dahlqvist writes in its latest letter to investors.
“The general weak market sentiment in September reverted in October and our sectors were no exception.”
“The general weak market sentiment in September reverted in October and our sectors were no exception,” writes the monthly letter. “It turned out, from a historical perspective, to be one of the strongest months in absolute terms. Sub-sectors and stocks with long-duration growth characteristics in combination with weak development since the peak in February did very well,” the letter continues. “In October, it was easier to say that the market had probably taken its first steps towards a serious rotation back into longer duration growth stocks in sectors such as solar PV, electric vehicles and the value chain of batteries and hydrogen. That said, we are long-term optimistic about the sector and believe that the recent two-month rotation could be translated into the market starting to believe in the same fundamentals as we do.”