Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – The Nordic hedge fund industry achieved its best annual performance since 2009 in 2024, posting a 10.6 percent gain. Unlike the record-breaking performance in 2009, which followed the industry’s steepest decline during the financial crisis, the strong performance of 2024 built on an already strong showing – the fourth-best year of the past decade – in 2023. All strategy categories delivered solid returns, with fixed-income hedge funds emerging as the clear standouts as a group.

Nordic systematic trend-following CTAs, macro funds, and managed futures vehicles collectively achieved an average return of 12.2 percent in 2024. However, this performance was notably influenced by the strong results of the bitcoin-focused trend-follower Anna Fund, which posted a gain of over 144 percent for the year. Anna Fund alone contributed approximately 10 percentage points to the group’s overall advance.

Both multi-manager and diversified hedge funds more than doubled their gains from 2023, with multi-manager funds advancing nearly 10 percent and diversified hedge funds increasing by 9.4 percent in 2024. Equity hedge funds, the largest strategy category within the Nordic Hedge Index, rose by 8.7 percent, playing a significant role in driving the index’s overall performance for the year. Separately, long-only equity managers with hedge fund-like characteristics, tracked independently from the main index, delivered a strong average return of 21.9 percent in 2024, building on similarly strong results from 2023.

Top-Performing Nordic Hedge Funds in 2024

A significant majority of Nordic hedge funds – around 84 percent – achieved positive returns in 2024. Among them, four funds posted gains exceeding 30 percent, with the bitcoin-focused trend-follower Anna Fund leading the performance rankings.

As Bitcoin doubled in value for the second consecutive year, the Norwegian algorithmic hedge fund Anna Fund topped the index with a return of 144 percent. Despite benefiting from the favorable backdrop of the Bitcoin rally in 2024, Anna Fund’s co-founder, Ole Christian Wendel, highlights that the strategy’s success is not solely dependent on crypto market rallies.

Impega, an equity-focused hedge fund led by a former employee of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages Norway’s Oil Fund, secured second place in the Nordic hedge fund industry in 2024 with a 54 percent return. Launched in May 2023, Impega was conceived as a smaller, more agile version of NBIM, according to portfolio manager Petter Kvamme Jensen.

Another recently launched Norwegian equity hedge fund, TIND Discovery Fund, which is also managed by a team of former NBIM colleagues, secured third place with a 35 percent return for the year. Launched in late 2023, TIND Discovery Fund employs on long-biased equity strategy specializing in small- and mid-cap stocks. The fund is managed by Harald Hjorthen as CIO and Jon Håkon Findreng as portfolio manager.

Tidan Fund, a hedge fund specializing in capital structure opportunities, closely follows with a return of 33.9 percent. Launched in October 2021, Tidan Fund employs a capital structure relative value strategy similar to the approach used by Brummer-backed Carve, where Tidan CIO Michael Falken previously worked as a portfolio manager. The fund seeks to capitalize on mispricings within companies’ capital structures. After a slow start, Tidan Fund surged in 2024 as more value transfer opportunities emerged.

The top five list is rounded out by another Norwegian equity fund, Borea Utbytte, which posted a return of 29.2 percent. Borea Utbytte is a Norwegian banking sector-focused equity fund managed by portfolio manager Magnus Vie Sundal.

Top Performing Long-Only Equity Funds in 2024

In September of 2023, HedgeNordic introduced a new sub-strategy category to the Nordic Hedge Index: Equity Long-Only (ELO). This category is home to funds that would fall short of qualifying as a hedge fund due to their long-only trading approach but exhibit habitual characteristics of a hedge fund strategy (e.g., leverage and derivatives usage, portfolio concentration, fee structure, a spin-off of a long/short strategy, and absolute return objectives, among others).

Asilo Argo, which employs a high-conviction strategy aimed at identifying “future superstar” stocks, stood out as the top performer in this group with a return of 77.3 percent in 2024, building on a 64 percent gain in 2023. Re-launched in late 2020 under United Bankers, the fund led by portfolio managers Ernst Grönblom and Henri Blomster has seen two strong years of performance following a challenging 2022. Asilo Argo’s portfolio of richly-valued stocks (based on traditional metrics) faced a 53 percent loss in the risk-off market environment of 2022.