The rise of Nordic hedge funds

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The fact is that most people do not associate the Nordic countries with high finance, or hedge funds in particular. This is, however a mistake.

The Nordics is not somewhere people typically think of when assessing the global hedge fund industry. Popular places to locate such funds is normally thought to lie in either New York or London, with tax-efficient domiciles such as the Cayman also associated with the industry.

This however would be a mistake. One of the world’s biggest hedge funds is Brummer & Partners, a Stockholm-based firm with offices in London amidst other locations.

The group’s LinkedIn page boasts that it has a total of $18 billion under management, and over 400 employees.

The fund itself was launched in 1996, the first such fund to emanate from the traditionally fiscally conservative Scandinavian nation.

It was launched by Patrick Brummer, who cut his teeth at asset manager Alfred Berg before starting Zenit, the fund that was to go on to become Brummer & Partners.

While Brummer is by far the largest hedge fund in the region, there are also other players involved.

While Sweden is home to a hefty 63 per cent of all the hedge funds in the Nordics, Norway is another heavyweight.

Best-known for its enormous sovereign wealth fund, there is also an Oslo-based fund entitled Warren Short Term trading that had a strong 2012 in which it was one of the top 10 best performing funds in the world.

Similarly Denmark is home to the likes of the credit-focused Asgard Fixed Income Fund, which remarks that it is focused on ‘picking the best risk premiums in short-term high quality bond markets.

Ultimately while the Nordics are not in the same league as the UK or USA when it comes to producing a number of the biggest names, it is home to a large variety of niche funds specialising in particular areas such as credit.

The biggest name is clearly Patrick Brummer and his business, but in addition the intrepid can find there is a large number of smaller plays also active in this sector.

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