Longstanding partner leaves Brummer

One of seven owners of Brummer & Partners, Sweden’s largest hedge fund manager, has left after 13 years as a portfolio manager at the firm, and stepped down from the board.

   Torbjörn Olofsson, a portfolio manager at Brummer's fixed-income boutique Nektar, had his last day on October 12 and has also stepped down from his post on the board of Brummer, according to a statement published on Brummer’s website.

   Olofsson said in the statement: “I have always thought that you need to quit when you are on top. I, Nektar and all of Brummer & Partners can look back at a relatively long period that has been successful in terms of asset management performance. Now is therefore a good time to leave.”

A Brummer spokesman confirmed the move.

   Brummer owns boutique firms, either outright or jointly with their managers, and helps finance their funds. But it gives managers the freedom to invest as they wish.

   Nektar, a fixed income relative value manager, is one of seven single managers co-owned by Brummer. The strategy is up 5.36% in the first nine months of this year, and has posted annualised gains of 12.38% a year since it launched in 1998, according to Brummer's website. Assets in the strategy grew by 39% to $3.4bn during 2011, and Nektar opened an office in London, where it recruited two senior portfolio managers.

   A person familiar with the firm said that Olofsson was one of the smaller equity owners of the seven partners in Brummer. The other six partners are chairman and co-founder Patrik Brummer; Kent Janér, Nektar’s chief investment officer; group chief executive Klaus Jäntti; and co-founders Svante Elfving and Per Josefsson; and Peter Thelin.

   Brummer's multi-strategy fund, which invests across its in-house range, is up 4.69% this year to the end of September, according to its website. The Swedish firm managed $14bn as of June 30, making it the fifth largest hedge fund manager in Europe, according to Financial News' annual survey of the biggest managers in Europe.

   In May, Brummer shut down Orvent Capital, a Singapore-based event-driven fund, following performance losses. The firm had seeded it in early 2011. Brummer recently announced plans to buy a stake in a new management company called Carve, which has lined up $500m for a fund that will try to capitalise on "global financial imbalances".