July does not appear to have been a particularly strong month for the Nordic hedge fund industry. One notable exception is DNB TMT Long/Short Equities, which gained 10.6 percent through July 28. The strong monthly performance erased June’s losses, bringing the market-neutral equity strategy close to breaking even for the year.
Interestingly, both DNB TMT Long/Short Equities and its much larger long-only sibling, DNB Technology, delivered strong gains in a month when technology stocks came under pressure. Investors grew increasingly concerned about the enormous capital spending required for artificial intelligence infrastructure, while renewed worries about intensifying competition from China weighed particularly heavily on semiconductor stocks.
Although the DNB TMT team does not disclose the short positions in its market-neutral portfolio, the positioning of the long-only strategy offers some clues. DNB Technology is currently underweight several of the largest semiconductor companies, including Nvidia, Micron Technology, and Advanced Micro Devices. Given that chipmakers have been among the weakest performers during the sell-off, this underweight exposure likely contributed to the strong July performance of both the long-only and market-neutral strategies.
DNB TMT Long/Short Equities is a market-neutral absolute-return strategy focused on the technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) sectors. The fund seeks to maintain a zero-beta, low-volatility profile regardless of broader market direction and currently manages approximately €180 million in assets. Its long-only counterpart launched in 2001, DNB Technology, oversees just under €10 billion and has generated an annualized return of about 18 percent since inception, roughly double the return of its benchmark, the MSCI World Communication Services and Information Technology Index.
The investment team is led by the strategy’s founding partners, Anders Tandberg-Johansen and Sverre Bergland, who have worked together since 2001. They were joined by portfolio managers Erling Thune in 2008 and Erling Haugan Kise in 2014, supported by a broader team of TMT investment specialists.
