Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – PriorNilsson Fonder has captured the spotlight at this year’s “Årets Fond” awards, presented by Swedish business magazine Privata Affärer. The stock-picking fund boutique was honored with the title of “Fund Company of the Year.” Simultaneously, its low-risk market-neutral fund, PriorNilsson Yield, was acknowledged with the “Årets Fond” award in the “Alternative Investments” category, while the long-only Prior Nilsson Sverige Aktiv earned the distinction of “Swedish Fund of the Year.”
Established by PO Nilsson and Torgny Prior in 2002, the fund boutique was recognized as last year’s “Årets fondbolag” by Privata Affärer. “A genuine manager culture yields good results in the fund range that has grown into a broad savings portfolio,” the Jury behind the “Årets Fond” awards explains the rationale for naming PriorNilsson Fonder the “Fund Company of the Year” in 2023.
PriorNilsson’s inaugural fund, PriorNilsson Yield, was launched in late 2002. Over the years, the boutique has evolved from a two-person asset manager into a stock-picking boutique with a broader team and an expanded fund range. Four years after the launch of its first product, PriorNilsson Fonder launched a higher-risk, higher-reward long/short equity fund – PriorNilsson Idea. PriorNilsson Yield and Idea represent just two of the nine funds in PriorNilsson’s product range.
“You don’t always have to find the winner, it’s far more important to avoid the disasters.”
PO Nilsson
“You don’t always have to find the winner, it’s far more important to avoid the disasters,” PO Nilsson tells Privata Affärer. “What you don’t own is very important,” adds co-founder Torgny Prior. “Even among the big companies, some can perform poorly. We have seen several high-flying stocks that just fell apart,” he continues. “The two of us can miss upswings, but that’s still better than going along with downswings.”
PriorNilsson Yield
Privata Affärer also named PriorNilsson Yield the “Alternative Investment Fund” of the year. The contenders for the previously named “Årets Hedgefond” award also included Excalibur Fixed Income and JPM Europe Equity Absolute Alpha Fund. Tailored for investors seeking capital preservation solutions, Yield represents a market-neutral fund designed to deliver a few percentage points higher than short-term interest rates with minimal volatility. The jury’s rationale for selecting PriorNilsson Yield as the category winner was its “reliable returns with daily trading, independent of stock market fluctuations.”
“Reliable returns with daily trading, independent of stock market fluctuations.”
As a market-neutral fund, approximately 90 percent of PriorNilsson Yield’s assets are invested in the short-term interest market. This structure enables the fund to automatically receive higher returns when short-term interest rates rise. Stock picking in the market-neutral pillar of the portfolio serves as an additional return driver for PriorNilsson Yield. In 2023, the fund achieved a gain of 7.3 percent, marking its best annual performance since 2009. Since its inception in late 2002, the fund has delivered an annualized return of 3.6 percent, with an annualized volatility of 3.1 percent.
Initially, both founders of PriorNilsson were involved in managing PriorNilsson Yield. However, as Torgny assumed responsibility for the asset manager’s Swedish fund, PO Nilsson took on the sole management of Yield. Torgny Prior’s Prior Nilsson Sverige Aktiv was also honored by Privata Affärer as the “Swedish fund of the year.” Torgny manages Prior Nilsson Sverige Aktiv and the long/short equity fund, PriorNilsson Idea, alongside Martin Lindqvist.
