Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – HCP Focus Fund, a long-only equity hedge fund maintaining a concentrated portfolio of 12 companies benefiting from the digital revolution, sold its longest-held holding in the portfolio: Amazon.com. HCP Focus, which advanced 30 percent in the first four months of 2023 to recover some of the 53 percent decline incurred in 2022, had been invested in Amazon since the fund’s inception in late 2012.
“We sold the longest holding ever, Amazon, out of the portfolio. It was in the fund for more than a decade, since the foundation of the fund,” the team at Helsinki Capital Partners writes in an update to investors. “We consider Amazon to have matured as a company and its most attractive growth potential is behind us,” considers portfolio manager Pasi Havia (pictured). “In recent years, regulators have also woken up to the problem of the supremacy of technology companies. This has brought new risks to the largest technology companies, including Amazon,” argues Havia.
“We sold the longest holding ever, Amazon, out of the portfolio. It was in the fund for more than a decade, since the foundation of the fund.”
The team running HCP Focus sold out its investment in Amazon.com during the first quarter and added a new name to the portfolio, UK housing market marketplace Rightmove. “The fund’s new portfolio company is also the superior market leader in its own region. It is considerably smaller than Amazon and has more runway for growth ahead,” says Havia. “Rightmove is by far the UK’s leading housing market platform company. It benefits from network effects and makes a good profit with a high margin.”
Four months into the new year, HCP Focus Fund is the best-performing constituent of the Nordic Hedge Index with an advance of 30.1 percent. The concentrated equity hedge fund has delivered an annualized return of 12.3 percent since launching under the umbrella of Helsinki-based fund boutique Helsinki Capital Partners in December 2012. Last year was the fund’s first down year as technology company valuations came under pressure amid high rising interest rates due to high inflation and the prospect of a global economic downturn.
