The Nordic hedge-fund market has long balanced innovation with prudence. As allocators push for transparency, customization and scale, that balance is being re-drawn. In this “Powering Hedge Funds” discussion, I sat down with Stephen Roberts, Vice President of Sales at CWAN (Enfusion is now CWAN), and Serge Houles, CFA, CEO & Partner at Tidan Capital. We explore how Nordic managers are evolving from portfolio differentiation and data governance to SMAs and future-proofing amid consolidation. 

Q: To begin, how would you characterise the Nordic hedge-fund landscape today, and what themes are top-of-mind for investors?

Serge Houles: The Nordics have operated at a high institutional standard for years. Sweden in particular has one of Europe’s most mature asset-management ecosystems. People have been saving in funds for decades, and the hedge-fund industry is large, sophisticated and innovation-driven. The recent push for transparency and discipline isn’t a shift in mentality; it’s the natural evolution of an already well-governed market.

What investors want is consistency between the narrative and the operating model. They are looking for managers who combine research depth with clean, reliable data and a process that works in all regimes. At Tidan, running market-neutral strategies across capital-structure arbitrage, options/volatility arbitrage as well as systematic strategies requires exactly that: stable infrastructure, strong controls and daily precision in how we manage exposures and risk.

Stephen Roberts: Over the last 18 – 24 months in our experience we’ve seen a decisive tilt toward operational transparency and institutional controls.  Recent market events within the Swedish pension sector (FRT) have elevated governance standards and reinforce the importance of robust risk management frameworks. 

Q: As portfolio strategies evolve, particularly with the rise of private credit, where are managers finding meaningful avenues for differentiation?

Serge Houles: Diversification into private markets (including private credit) is part of the story, but the complementary need is for liquid, uncorrelated strategies that can rebalance around those illiquid allocations. That’s where market-neutral capital-structure and volatility strategies resonate.

Stephen Roberts: In our experience, the managers who stand out in fragmented markets follow a clear, disciplined playbook. They anchor everything in data, evidencing daily financing, exposure and liquidity, and they develop a defined micro-edge, often at the issuer level, where relative-value insights across credit and equity are strongest.

They build for real look-through so investors see P&L and risk at both fund and investor levels, and they operate with broad instrument coverage by unifying public and private assets within a single book of record. Just as importantly, they maintain strict latency discipline, automating reconcile-validate-publish cycles throughout the day to keep data continuously current.

Managers who execute with this consistency de-risk the operational side of returns and win mandates faster. Nordic managers in particular are embracing this model, drawing on the region’s deep technology culture and transparency standards to strengthen their position in global fundraising.

Q: When it comes to institutional controls and fundraising, which expectations have become true “non-negotiables” for investors?

Stephen Roberts: Operational Due Diligence (ODD) is now as decisive as investment DD. Investors expect complete audit trails, automated compliance, and segregation of duties; spreadsheet-driven workflows raise operational concerns. What makes Nordic managers unique is their ability to meet these elevated standards while maintaining the agility and innovation culture that has historically defined the region.

Serge Houles: The bar has always been high in this region. What’s changing is that allocators now expect institutional discipline from day one, even from boutiques. That’s an advantage for smaller firms: if you can demonstrate real-time transparency, automated controls and consistent data quality, you shorten the due-diligence cycle dramatically.

At Tidan, we invested from the start in building institutional-grade, scalable infrastructure. Investors recognised that immediately. When your operating model reflects genuine discipline, fundraising becomes less about persuasion and more about verification.

Q: As technology takes on a larger strategic role, how are expectations shifting for today’s leadership teams?

Serge Houles: Today’s leaders don’t need to code, but they do need to be fluent in data, integration and latency. In a Nordic context, that natural tech-savviness is ingrained. Sweden, for instance, was one of the earliest highly digitalised societies. Adopting cloud-native investment infrastructure is simply consistent with how people operate here.

At Tidan, every senior function, PMs, trading, risk and management, works off the same dashboards. It removes ambiguity and accelerates decision-making. Technology isn’t a support function anymore; it’s part of how you express your investment process.

Stephen Roberts: Across our client base, the cultural shift is that technology is a strategy lever, not an IT cost. Our front-to-back, single-instance cloud stack lets managers collapse silos-portfolio, order/risk, IBOR/ABOR, accounting and client reporting – to create one golden data record. When the whole leadership team sees the same validated numbers, decisions improve. In our experience, we’re seeing leading Nordic managers implement similar unified approaches, often partnering with specialized vendors while maintaining their core research advantages.

Q: Strong data governance is increasingly seen as the backbone of scalable asset management. From your vantage point, what approaches are proving most effective?

Stephen Roberts: Unifying front-, middle- and back-office data into one ecosystem is now table stakes. Best practice: ingest–normalize–reconcile–publish on a clock, with governance that’s auditable. That supports everything from regulatory reporting to investor letters – and it scales margin per mandate.

Serge Houles:  For systematic and data-dependent strategies, data errors compound quickly. Our approach is “trust but verify”: automation where it counts, combined with human sign-off at key control points. The good news is that modern SaaS has made institutional-grade governance accessible even to emerging managers.

The Nordics adapt to this quickly because the underlying culture values structure and accountability. People are raised with freedom, but also with the discipline to challenge ideas and test them rigorously. That mindset translates naturally into clean data governance and controlled growth which are the foundations of scalable asset management.

Q: With SMAs and customisation becoming more prominent, how are managers reshaping the client experience to support scalable relationships?

Serge Houles: SMAs are becoming a core part of institutional relationships. Clients want to tailor risk, exposures or liquidity, and retain full look-through and control of their assets. It’s operationally demanding, with mandate-level controls, position-level reporting, automated workflows adding complexity, but it aligns perfectly with how we already operate.

The result is deeper trust. When clients see their constraints reflected in the portfolio, you move from a product relationship to a partnership. In a region where investors are sophisticated and hands-on, SMAs are a natural fit.

Stephen Roberts: Surveys show allocators increasing SMA usage for transparency and control. The kicker is operational: with a unified platform, a manager can run dozens or hundreds of SMAs as efficiently as pooled funds – without sacrificing controls. That reframes “scale” as the number of bespoke relationships you can support, not just AUM.

Q: As the industry consolidates, what will help Nordic managers stay resilient and competitive in the years ahead?

Stephen Roberts: I see two levers: consolidation and collaboration. Some firms will merge; others will form tighter partnerships with administrators, data vendors and technology providers. Cloud-native, single-instance platforms expand capacity without ballooning cost, so teams can absorb new strategies or spin up new products quickly.

Serge Houles: Focus and clarity of purpose. Nordic firms shouldn’t try to be everything to everyone. They thrive when they lean into what the region does exceptionally well: robust and innovative portfolio management with engineering-driven problem-solving. Outsource or partner on the rest.

For Tidan, that means concentrating on our research and portfolio-construction edge while relying on institutional-grade partners for non-core processes. It allows us to scale without diluting identity. In many ways, the Nordic model which is characterised by selective partnerships, strong research culture, and high operational discipline, is a blueprint for boutique managers globally.

Q: Before we close, are there any final reflections you’d like to share on where the region is heading?

Serge Houles: I’m optimistic. The Nordic region combines deep financial maturity with a culture of innovation and accountability. Managers who pair research excellence with transparent, data-driven operations will continue to shine globally and attract capital.

Stephen Roberts: Agreed. Technology, data and investor expectations are converging in ways that reward discipline and adaptability. Nordic managers who embrace that are set to thrive.

About the Speakers

Serge Houles, CFA is CEO and Partner at Tidan Capital. He joined in 2023 to lead business development and became CEO in 2024, steering the firm toward a broader, systematic, multi-product platform. Previously, he was Managing Director and Chief Client Officer at IPM Informed Portfolio Management. His commentary often focuses on hedge-fund operations and technology.

Stephen Roberts is Vice President of Sales at CWAN and a CFA Charterholder, with 15+ years in buy-side technology. He led Nordic and UK expansion for FactSet and Charles River Development before joining CWAN. Stephen is responsible for Enfusion by CWAN, helping managers navigate portfolio complexity through a fully unified front-to-back platform that delivers real-time transparency and scalability.