The largest Madoff

A somewhat belated post, but the largest entity that had exposure to the know very famous financier Bernard Madoff was indeed one of Scandinavian Banks, Nordea, that invested through Fairfield Sentry (that charged investors a management and a performance fee for funnelling cash to Mr. Madoff). The total loss seems to be around 50-60 million USD. In total, this seems to end up the Swedish Madoff exposure at somewhere less than a 100 million USD. Large or not large, it is not good, not to have done a proper due diligence on the underlying funds, or even worse, claiming to have an investment mandate while allocating to another fond of funds and purely acting as a marketing agent.

One More Madoff

The smaller Swedish insurance company, "Svenska Handelsforsakringar" also reported a smaller loss to Madoff in the range of less than a million USD.

Whitebeam's Madoff Exposure

Whitebeam also got caught with the currently jailed broker Madoff, ultimately suffering a total loss in the same fund, Defender Ltd. Seems like the Defender guys had a pretty strong marketing presence in Sweden as they also managed to get money from the former Icelandic bank Kaupthing in two fund of funds (Katla and Krafla). Total loss there is currently unknown.

Swedish Madoff Exposures

Seems like things are moving in the Swedish fund-of-funds sector where several funds have been caught in the Madoff debacle. Although disclosing rather late, it seems as if Indecaps "Guide 2" fund had a 7% allocation to the fraudulent manager. In total the exposure was rather modest with 20-30 mn USD in exposure. The exposure is claimed to have been through a fund called "Defender Limited", question is who it defended.

Though year for hedge funds

Country Index Index Jul. Return YTD #Funds Reported NHX Sweden 117.05 -1.04% -1.96% 70 100% NHX Denmark 112.56 -0.90% -6.66% 26 96% NHX Norway 126.91 -2.36% -3.71% 19 84% NHX Finland 120.92 -0.97% 1.55% 18 94% Strategy Index Index Jul. Return YTD #Funds Reported NHX Equities 123.97 -1.10% -2.47% 59 93% NHX Fixed Income 98.24 0.31% -10.68% 14 93% NHX Multi Strategy 120.66 -1.72% -3.01% 17 100% NHX Managed Futures & CTA 123.17 -4.04% 1.66% 7 100% NHX Fund of Funds 115.32 -0.99% -0.29% 36 100%

The Final Margin Call?

It seems as if the SocGen driven liquidation on January 18, managed to take out the remains of what once was Kullberg & Spiik (the Explora and Edge funds was closed down by the Swedish FSA one and half year ago). It is reported that a couple of the investment clubs managed by one the managers suffered losses on that day and had to liquidate positions at a significant loss. DI reports a 50% loss. It is also reported that Mr. Spiik has gone underground and is hard to reach. The webpage seems to be mostly empty. One investor is also reported to have filed a complaint against the manager.

Risk-Reward Closed for new subscriptions

The Swedish rocket scientists at Systematisk Fonder have decided to close the fund Risk Reward for new subscriptions since the fund reached the pre-defined asset under management target of more than 50 M SEK. The fund recoreded a 10%+ gain in January. They are also launching a new fund, called Covered Call, that trades Nordic stocks and options.

Consepio - Turning around!

Consepio, (a.ka. Pecunia) delivered a strong January with an estimated return of 14.6% catching a large part of chaotic stock market development in January. After two struggling years, the fund is still in a drawdown though.

Consepio - Turning around?

Looks as if Consepio managed to pick up the pennies that everyone was throwing to the bears in November. With the prevailing "difficult" markets for Long dominated hedge funds, Consepio managed to pick up some 5% in November. The fund is down 10% ytd after betting on market corrections for some time, lets see how it handles this one! It is as hard being a hedge fund managers as being a perma bear... not an easy business.

Healthinvest

After a dashing run in the three first months for the recently launched Swedish Long/Short equity fund, Health Invest, the fund has encountered difficult market circumstances and is currently down 30.8% since inception after getting battered up in the equity markets. The fund re-opened in August 2007 after seeing assets falling below 1200 Mio Sek and will remain upon until they reach 1400 Mio Sek. A fair guess that it would take some time to do so, given the recent track-record. Perhaps running an asset management business outside their former employers was more difficult than previously anticipated.

Pecunia goes Consepio

Pecunia throws in the towel and decides to change the name to Consepio. "The name Pecunia has at several occasions been mixed up with companies with the same name. To avoid confusion the name is changed to Consepio. " Assuming that the name change should again put the focus of the fund manager back to earning money. The fund is down some 8% ytd, let's see if the name change can take fund to break-even levels for the next 12-months.

Pecunia

Pecunia is out in the news again.

After the planned retirement of Peter Edwall, Ragnhild Wilborg now
appears to be in full ownership of the fund. Peter Edwall, seems to
have traded himself out the fund, leaving the fund with only
regulatory capital.

The new manager of the fund, seeking free marketing in some of
Sweden's major newspapers on such diverse subjects as the policy of
the Swedish Riksbank. Well, if she cannot perform, Pecunia lost 13.7%
in 2006, she might as well continue the myth building process.

Swedish funds closing

A number of hedge funds in the Nordic area have recently closed. Among
them are Brummer's Zenith fund, Radar, the award winning LS fund as
well as Eikos.

It is good that the funds are closing, as some of the strategies and
markets that the mangers trade do indeed have limited capacity. The
closing of the funds enables the managers to fully focus on the
management of the assets rather than the raising of the assets.

Zenit out of capacity

The Brummer and Partner behemoth fund, Zenit, will close to new
investor due citing request from the fund managers as well as changing
equity market (more competitive). The fund will now focus on mid cap
equities in Europe (including Scandinavia) and Asia.

A potential re-opening for capacity will be considered if market
conditions becomes friendlier and "easier" to trade again. The fund
will close in March 2007. The fund seems to have regained some
momentum again with return for 2006 above 16%.

The fund manages around 1 billion Euro, this is one of the largest
European L/S funds.

Graal - Fondmarknandes Hedge fund of the year

The low risk Graal hedge fund was appointed the Swedish Hedge fund of
the year by Fondmarknaden.se.