GNGBY - Protean Funds Scandinavia AB March 2025 Partner Letter

2025-04-02 10:35:00 ET

Summary

• Protean Aktiesparfond Norden launches, combining low fees of index funds with active management potential, aiming to lower fees as the fund grows.
• Protean Small Cap outperformed its benchmark by 0.1% in March, despite a -6.1% return, and has gained 37.1% since June 2023.
• Protean Select hedge fund returned -1.2% in March, maintaining low volatility and generating 27.6% returns since May 2022.

Dear Partners,

Today marks the first day of trading for our new fund Protean Aktiesparfond Norden . It is a Nordic long-only fund that combines the low fees of index funds with the potential of active management to outperform the index. The best of two worlds. In addition, the fee will be lowered as the fund grows bigger, sharing the scale advantages with investors. We launch the fund with approximately USD 30m in AuM, and we thank all who have dared to believe in the concept from day one. Now we will try to prove ourselves.

Local indices had a terrible March. While managing to (marginally) beat its benchmark, Protean Small Cap suffered also. It returned -6.1%, outperforming its index by 0.1%. Since launching in June 2023, it has gained 37.1%, which is 23% ahead of the Carnegie Nordic Small Cap Index.

The hedge fund Protean Select returned -1.2% in March , staying true to its objective of avoiding large drawdowns. We are approaching the 3-year mark in April, and since launch the fund has returned 27.6% with (far) less than a third of the market’s volatility.

This month’s letter elaborates on why on earth we are starting a low-cost active fund. We follow up last month’s “Is this really happening?” with the conclusions from spending time on the ground in both the US and Mexico (hint: it’s not great). And, as usual, provide color on winners and losers in both the hedge fund and the small cap fund....

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