Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Kenny Friis Gade has joined fixed-income boutique Asgard Asset Management as Deputy Chief Investment Officer as of March 1. Friis has joined Asgard after nearly eight years at SEB, where he worked as Head of Trading and Head of Markets.
“Tomorrow is my first day at Asgard Asset Management. I’m very much looking forward to initiate this new adventure with the Asgard team,” Kenny Friis Gade writes on LinkedIn. “Thanks, Morten Mathiesen, for showing me the trust. Becoming an integral part of the team delivering top nudge performance and products to existing and new clients will be my top priority.”
“Becoming an integral part of the team delivering top nudge performance and products to existing and new clients will be my top priority.”
Before joining SEB in 2015, Friis worked at Nykredit Asset Management for more than ten years. He served as chief portfolio manager of Nykredit’s fixed-income-focused hedge fund strategies Mira and Kobra for a little more than four years. He then joined SEB in April 2015 as Head of Trading before taking on an additional role as Head of Markets in September 2018.
In late 2022, Asgard Asset Management also appointed Kasper Ullegaard as chief executive officer following the announced departure of Birger Durhuus. Ullegaard, who assumed his new role on November 1, previously held senior positions with large Danish financial institutions, most recently at Danske Bank, where he is responsible for ESG Advisory – Institutional Banking. He also previously worked at Sampension, where he spent over nine years as head of fixed income.
Asgard Asset Management oversees €864 million in assets across its two fixed-income hedge funds within the Nordic Hedge Index: Asgard Fixed Income Fund and Asgard Fixed Income Risk Premia. Asgard Fixed Income Fund is one of the most decorated hedge funds at the Nordic Hedge Award, sitting on the podium in the “Best Nordic Fixed-Income Hedge Fund” category in nine of the ten editions of the Nordic Hedge Award and winning the top prize five times. Asgard Fixed Income Fund, down 10.9 percent in the difficult market conditions of 2022, gained 3.2 percent in the first month of 2023. The younger Asgard Fixed Income Risk Premia advanced 3.4 percent in January 2023 after booking a loss of 8.0 percent in 2022.