In the face of the worst financial crisis since the Depression of the 1930s, the Scandinavian hedge fund industry has emerged from the economic storm in remarkably good health. Despite a decline in global hedge fund assets and the closure of hundreds of funds around the world over the past two years, the flow of Scandinavian start-ups has not dried up and is being partly driven by the resilient demand for hedge funds on the part of Scandinavian institutional and retail investors.
This positive picture is backed up by EuroHedge’s latest statistics which reveal that overall assets for single-manager hedge funds have expanded from $20.4 billion in mid-2007 to almost $23 billion by the end of September 2009. In addition, the increase in the number of funds from 110 to 128 has helped to fuel the steady growth in assets.
As our accompanying charts indicate, Scandinavia’s hedge funds are also...