Equity hedge fund Impega marked its three-year anniversary this May, concluding the period with annualized returns of approximately 35 percent. According to founder and portfolio manager Petter Kvamme Jensen, the explanation behind this performance lies not in long-term buy-and-hold investing, but rather in maintaining liquidity, staying agile, and focusing on shorter investment horizons. While the journey has included both setbacks and successes – clearly more of the latter – Kvamme Jensen believes the biggest achievement extends beyond returns alone.
“Looking back at the past three years, we are very pleased with how the fund has developed,” Kvamme Jensen summarizes the inception-to-date journey. “Delivering approximately 150 percent since inception has obviously been a strong outcome, but what we value just as much is how the investment process has evolved,” he emphasizes. “The strategy has become significantly more refined, disciplined, and repeatable over time.”
“Delivering approximately 150 percent since inception has obviously been a strong outcome, but what we value just as much is how the investment process has evolved.”
Petter Kvamme Jensen
Liquidity Creates Opportunity
One of the clearest lessons since launching the strategy, according to Kvamme Jensen, has been the importance of liquidity and flexibility. Early experiences reinforced the importance of maintaining the ability to reposition quickly when market conditions or opportunity sets change. “Early on, experience reinforced that having the ability to move decisively when the opportunity set changes is critical,” he explains. “That naturally pushed the portfolio increasingly toward highly liquid equities, particularly in the U.S. market, where depth, information flow, and opportunity breadth are unmatched.”
“Early on, experience reinforced that having the ability to move decisively when the opportunity set changes is critical.”
Petter Kvamme Jensen
Portfolio construction has been another important lesson. Impega has generally operated with around 12 positions across different sectors, a structure Kvamme Jensen believes “strikes the right balance between conviction and diversification.” For him, maintaining focus does not mean concentrating capital excessively, but rather constructing a portfolio where stock selection meaningfully drives returns while still managing risk appropriately. “That gives enough concentration for stock selection to matter, while still allowing risk to be managed sensibly.”
Why Shorter Horizons Matter
Perhaps the most defining characteristic of the strategy is its investment horizon. One of the key conclusions from the first three years is that forecasting too far into the future often introduces more uncertainty than insight. “We have learned that forecasting beyond 6-12 weeks often introduces more noise than edge, especially in fast-moving markets shaped by macro events, positioning shifts, earnings revisions, and sentiment changes,” observes Kvamme Jensen. “Staying focused on shorter time horizons has been an important contributor to both decision quality and risk management.”
“Staying focused on shorter time horizons has been an important contributor to both decision quality and risk management.”
Petter Kvamme Jensen
This emphasis on shorter-term investing forms a central part of what differentiates Impega. The strategy focuses on liquid businesses that are fundamentally understandable and where there is a clearly identifiable catalyst or mispricing expected to materialize over a relatively short timeframe. Kvamme Jensen is not a buy-and-hold investor. Agility itself has become one of the defining characteristics of the strategy.
Staying Agile in an Increasingly Polarized Market
Looking ahead, Kvamme Jensen argues that the opportunity set remains attractive. He points to increasingly polarized markets, where dispersion between winners and losers continues to widen, creating what he believes are favorable conditions for active stock pickers. “Markets are becoming increasingly polarized, with larger performance dispersion between winners and losers, which tends to create attractive opportunities for active managers,” says the Norwegian fund manager.
Geographically, the U.S. is expected to remain the primary hunting ground, largely because of its depth and breadth of opportunities. Sector exposures, meanwhile, will continue to evolve opportunistically rather than follow any predefined allocation.
Ultimately, the objective is to keep doing more of the same. “At its core, the ambition for Impega remains unchanged: to compound capital at attractive rates through disciplined, opportunistic, high-conviction investing while remaining agile enough to adapt as market conditions evolve.”
