Stock-picking boutique Protean Funds Scandinavia has officially launched its low-cost active Global fund on September 15, building on the early success of its Nordic Aktiesparfond, which marked its first anniversary this year. The newly launched Aktiesparfond Global and the sister Nordic fund are designed around a simple dilemma: “Index funds are cheap but can’t beat the index, and active funds are expensive and therefore don’t.” Both funds seek to address that trade-off through a low-cost active approach, with fees designed to fall as assets grow.

Managed by Richard Bråse, Aktiesparfond Norden charges direct savers a 0.5 percent management fee, less than half the industry median for comparable funds. The fee structure is built around the idea that economies of scale should benefit investors rather than the fund company. As assets grow, the fee is reduced, allowing savers to retain more of the returns generated by the strategy.

The fund is up 39 percent since launching in early 2025, 11 percentage points ahead of VINX, a benchmark tracking Nordic equities across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. It now manages just over SEK 2.3 billion for nearly 20,000 unit holders. “It’s still early days, but the signs are good. It seems to be working, and investors agree,” says Pontus Dackmo, Chief Investment Manager and Co-Founder of Protean Funds Scandinavia. 

The case for an active global fund

Dackmo’s case for an active global fund extends beyond the familiar debate around passive ownership. In his view, investors in global index funds face a second, less obvious issue: the composition of the indices themselves. “The main problems are the built-in momentum strategy of buying more of whatever has already gone up, and the fact that passive funds are slowly undermining the very functioning of the equity market,” he says.

He also points to the increasing concentration of global equity indices in the U.S. Well over 70 percent of the MSCI World Index is made up of U.S.-listed companies, turning what is commonly described as a global allocation into one heavily exposed to a single market. “You have a full quarter of the index concentrated in a handful of enormous technology names, driven by the same handful of factors,” Dackmo says.

“It’s a more sensible alternative: a competitively priced active global fund.”

Pontus Dackmo, Chief Investment Manager at Protean Funds Scandinavia.

These are among the reasons Protean has launched Aktiesparfond Global, which is intended to offer an alternative to both passive ownership and the concentration embedded in market-cap-weighted global indices. “It’s a more sensible alternative: a competitively priced active global fund,” Dackmo says. Like its Nordic counterpart, the fund will lower its fee as assets grow, reflecting Protean’s view that the benefits of scale should accrue to savers rather than the fund company.

Finding an edge beyond home markets

For a Stockholm-based boutique, however, investing globally presents a different challenge from investing in the Nordic markets. Dackmo acknowledges that Protean has no obvious home-market advantage when the investment universe spans the entire world.

“There’s no home-turf advantage and no informational edge when the investable universe is essentially unmappable and the pitch is the entire planet,” he acknowledges. That has led to a recurring question from prospective investors: “Fine, we get Norden and Bråse, but what’s the edge with Olle, running money globally?”

“What matters instead is much duller: a clear process, discipline around capital allocation, consistency in how the portfolio is built, and, above everything, keeping costs down.”

Pontus Dackmo, Chief Investment Manager at Protean Funds Scandinavia.

Dackmo argues that the answer is structural rather than geographical. “We’re not relying on being based nearby, the size of an analyst team, or decades of ‘experience’ — none of which, when you actually look at the data, correlates with fund performance,” he argues. “What matters instead is much duller: a clear process, discipline around capital allocation, consistency in how the portfolio is built, and, above everything, keeping costs down,” Dackmo adds. “It was never about where decisions get made. It’s about how they’re made, and at what price.”

Selecting the portfolio manager

Finding the right manager for the Global fund, Dackmo says, proved harder than developing the concept itself. He believes Olle Qvarnström is well suited to run the strategy, particularly because of his natural preference for valuation over market price.

“He has a natural pull towards value over price — the same instinct the whole Aktiesparfond idea rests on,” Dackmo says. “With him, it isn’t a discipline; it’s a default setting.” He also points to Qvarnström’s willingness to stick with the framework when benchmarks or short-term market sentiment point in another direction. That patience will be important given the fund’s long-term investment horizon.

“He has a natural pull towards value over price — the same instinct the whole Aktiesparfond idea rests on. With him, it isn’t a discipline; it’s a default setting.”

Pontus Dackmo, Chief Investment Manager at Protean Funds Scandinavia.

There will inevitably be periods when the strategy lags its benchmark, particularly given the breadth and competitiveness of the global equity universe. “There will be stretches, probably long ones, where the fund trails its index,” Dackmo acknowledges. “In the hardest category out there, that’s truer here than anywhere else. But if we’re right more often than we’re wrong, it will work out. Eventually.”