Scandium Asset Management A/S, the firm behind Scandinavia's top performing fund of hedge funds, is to launch new absolute return producPARA_BREAK_SENTINEL_9f8e7d6c

Scandium Asset Management A/S, the firm behind Scandinavia's top performing fund of hedge funds, is to launch new absolute return products in 2006.

Though initially aimed at professional and institutional investors, Scandium also plans to makes these low volatility products available to retail investors through third parties.

New legislation introduced in 2005 opened up the Danish hedge fund industry and Scandium director and founder Caspar Hallas is expecting a similar 'explosion' to that seen in Sweden.

'There has been great interest in our absolute return activities,' he says. 'This is natural considering our results.'

According to Hallas, the firm's core product, the Scandium Fund Limited, offers low volatility, low correlation to other financial markets and a stable 7-13 per cent absolute return, making it ideal for securing investors against high market volatility and, with its higher return potential, a viable alternative to government bonds.

When the stock market dropped 35 per cent in 2002, Scandium Find Limited delivered a positive return of 7 per cent.

Since then returns has increased year on year and the annualised return during over the past four years is close to 10 per cent with volatility similar to a bond portfolio.

'Scandium has delivered positive absolute returns since 2002, independently of market movements,' says Niels Hougaard, Chairman of the board and former investment director in Kommunernes Pensionsforsikring, a Danish institution with 10 billion EUR under management. 'This sheds a new light on asset management in Denmark.'

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