$100 Million Swedish Hedge Fund Shuts as Founder Heads to London

(Bloomberg) -- Stockholm-based money manager Sean George is winding down the $100 million hedge fund he created as he steps down as chief investment officer of Strukturinvest for a new role outside Sweden.

George is repaying investor capital as he closes his Hamiltonian Global Credit Opportunity Fund, according to a statement on Friday. The credit fund had been shortlisted in the 2020 HFM EuroHedge Emerging Manager Awards.

“The new opportunity I was given is such that I can't turn it down,” George said in the statement without providing details of his new employer.

Before working in Sweden, George held managing director-level roles at Jefferies, trading fixed-income products in London and credit-default swaps in New York, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also worked at Deutsche Bank, where he ran investment-grade CDS trading in the U.S., and at UBS.

George's new job involves a major hedge fund in London where he will build out his own team, a person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the details are private.

Aside from his work in asset management, George is known in Sweden for having shone a light on the issue of racial bias within the country's banking industry.

The 48-year-old said back in December that he “never felt creed, color, social background were issues when working in the U.S. or the U.K.” But in Sweden, “it certainly seems to be in the air.”

His comments, first published in a Bloomberg interview, sparked a wider debate in Sweden. State broadcaster SVT ran a program on the theme of bias in the Swedish banking industry, and interviewed George.

George's decision to leave Sweden, where he moved at the age of 12 after growing up in the Caribbean, is unrelated to his experience of discrimination, the person familiar with his thinking said.

Read More: Hedge-Fund Boss Ignites Swedish Race Debate With Bias Complaint

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