By Claire Makin
The alternatives business at Nordic financial services group SEB is proof that entrepreneurial teams can flourish inside large banks. Started under Eric Hoh, a 17-year veteran of the bank, the team has a long history of hedge fund seeding and a less formal approach than many of its competitors.
Common sense and experience rather than rigid parameters govern the process. “We try to be as unconstrained as possible, and flexible in negotiating with managers,” Hoh says.
SEB launched its first formal hedge fund seeding platform in 2003 to invest risk capital on the bank’s own behalf, and since then has raised more than $550 million from investors to channel into early-stage managers. The bank itself began providing finance to hedge funds from as early as 1997, along with prime brokerage and other services.
On the back of its long pedigree of...