Michael Östlund & Company, a Stockholm firm that started as a family office, will invest in ProfitFundCom, a Liechtenstein-based hedge fund ...

Michael Östlund & Company, a Stockholm firm that started as a family office, will invest in ProfitFundCom, a Liechtenstein-based hedge fund manager, as part of a larger partnership between the two firms. “Michael Östlund & Company will be ProfitFundCom's representative in the Swedish market as well as a strategic partner on the research side to optimise the Profit Group’s asset allocation and advisory business,” said Stefan Nilsson, managing director of the Profit Group’s Tokyo office. He added: “The plan is to include the ProfitFundCom Global Macro Fund in Michael Östlund’s own fund of funds (Delphi Global Growth Fund) and to further include the fund in their discretionary allocation process as part of the absolute return strategy for their private and institutional clients in Sweden.” Michael Östlund & Company is a Stockholm-based brokerage, asset management and advisory firm founded in 1974. Having initially functioned as a family office for the Östlund family — one of Sweden’s wealthiest families — it has branched out to become a commercial player in the Swedish financial markets. ProfitFundCom was set up in 2000 and has offices in Japan and Liechtenstein. It manages a global macro fund — which, according to the firm, has outperformed the CSFB Tremont Global Macro Index for over two years and was nominated as Best Global Macro Fund in Asia at the Asian Masters of Hedge Awards 2005 — and a Japan/Asia Equity Fund, also outperforming its benchmark in 2004 and 2005. The investors are both institutions and high net-worth individuals. The firm’s chief investment officer is Richard Werner, one of the best known financial economists working on the Japanese economy.