While Denmark may have matched and even overtaken Sweden’s hedge fund industry in terms of assets under management during 2025, Sweden continues to stand out as the Nordic region’s most densely populated hedge fund market with 59 active hedge funds. Although no Swedish hedge fund featured among the Nordic industry’s top ten performers last year, the year nonetheless highlighted the breadth and resilience of the country’s hedge fund ecosystem, with several strategies delivering strong returns across diverse investment strategies.
After two challenging years and a subdued start to 2025, Proxy Renewable Long/Short Energy staged a pronounced recovery over the course of the year. Despite giving back some gains in December, the energy-transition-focused long/short fund finished 2025 as the best-performing Swedish hedge fund, posting a gain of 20.6 percent in its SEK share class. The rebound reflected a broader recovery in renewable energy and clean-tech equities following two difficult years for the sector.
Launched in March 2025, Tidan Global Equity Enhanced delivered a return of 19.8 percent in its first year. The fund employs a so-called portable alpha strategy, combining Tidan Capital’s market-neutral options and volatility arbitrage strategy with equity market exposure obtained through futures. The strategy builds on the strong track record of the Tidan NOVA Fund, which forms the defensive alpha engine of the structure and returned 13.3 percent in 2025.
A small-sized discretionary macro strategy managed by Nils Brobacke, Brobacke Global Allokering, also delivered a strong result in 2025, gaining 19.6 percent. Meanwhile, Coeli Energy Opportunities recorded a return of 16.7 percent. After years running energy-focused market-neutral strategies, portfolio managers Vidar Kalvoy and Joel Etzler shifted in early 2023 to a more long-biased long/short equity approach focused on renewable energy and the broader electrification theme. Despite a challenging environment for renewable equities, the fund has performed well since the strategic refocus.
Another former market-neutral strategy that embraced a more directional profile is Chelonia Select, which rounded out the top five best-performing Swedish hedge funds in 2025. The stock-picking long/short equity fund, managed by Magnus Angenfelt and Anders Palmqvist, ended the year with a return of 16.2 percent following its transition to a more long-biased approach in 2024.
While Swedish hedge funds may not have produced the most eye-catching headline returns in 2025, many funds nonetheless delivered notable performance relative to their mandates, risk profiles, and market exposures. These included Tidan Capital’s market-neutral options and volatility arbitrage strategy NOVA, the machine-learning-driven trend-following fund Lynx Constellation, the absolute-return multi-strategy fund SilverDome One, fixed-income macro fund Excalibur Fixed Income, and Meriti Neutral, among others.
