8 January 2016, Stockholm, Sweden | News
Those of us who have the privilege of devoting our days to closely monitoring financial markets are rarely bored. Events unfolding in the future are, by definition, difficult to predict, and we often hear analysts, strategists, asset managers and other forecasters say, “It has never been as difficult to predict the future as now”. This is probably true!
But as soon as the future becomes the present and then quickly becomes the past, it gets easy. The new future, however, seems difficult in comparison. Or, perhaps, even more difficult than the future that just was.
In 2015, both we and the financial markets in general had to worry about potential Greek bankruptcy, followed by fears of a sharp slowdown in China, and then tragic concern about terrorism in the wake of IS advances in Syria, and its proximity suddenly shifted to our own highly tangible reality through the attack in Paris. Flows of refugees affected the whole of Europe, and had political implications all the way up to our own turf. Suddenly, the normally very remote became a highly tangible reality for all of us.
Financial markets were turbulent, with the stock market swinging between strong gains in the early months and steep falls, and attempts at recovery. Commodity markets have been more or less in free fall, which also hit credit bonds hard, or at least those with direct exposure to the oil and mining industries.
Despite this turbulent environment, we can look back on a successful year. The difficulty in predicting the markets prompted many clients to choose funds with a lower risk profile than traditional equity funds, which benefited us. We have a broad product portfolio, and during the past year it was mainly our hedge funds that attracted many new investors. We thus gained market share in 2015 and succeeded in strengthening our position in the Swedish market. We have seen strong inflows from both existing and new clients, and we are proud and grateful for the enormous interest we have seen from distributors and end clients. Almost all of our products generated a positive return during the year, and some of our funds have been particularly successful. Our hedge funds generated good risk-adjusted returns, and our small cap fund was one of the very best in the market.
During the past year, we have augmented our organisation with a number of new employees in order to be able to address larger volumes, and to equip the organisation to meet increasing regulatory requirements for risk management, compliance and reporting. It feels enormously pleasing to be able to build on what Catella stands for: Independent management of Nordic assets, with a focus on the client and with professional, dedicated and enthusiastic personnel.
Our ambition is to always do our best, to develop new products, to be responsive to change and to be an attractive employer. We want to be able to attract and retain the brightest talent; people who want to be involved with building an even stronger Catella that, with a modest tone, continues to serve you, our clients, with quality fund management. Moreover, we wish to contribute to a better understanding of our products and the market's movements through transparent and frank dialogue. It is our ambition, and my ambition, that Catella will always remain an asset. Even though the future has never been so difficult to predict as it is right now.
Many thanks for your confidence in us!
