Mandatum Managed Futures UCITS

Mandatum Managed Futures UCITS has been named by The Hedge Fund Journal as the Best Performing Fund in 2025 and over 2- and 3-year periods ending December 2025 in the CTA Trend Following (AUM < $150m) strategy category, winning its UCITS Hedge award. The product was launched in December 2019 with two seeders: the balance sheet of Mandatum, one of Finland's largest insurance companies and institutional asset managers, and a Finnish pension fund with extensive hedge fund allocation experience. The strategy began as a pure trend follower and has since evolved into a multi-factor approach that adapts to market regimes, while the firm maintains confidence in trend following's enduring value.

According to senior portfolio manager Ville Rantanen, the diversification was driven by the volatility of trend strategies. The fund has added orthogonal strategies using mean reversion, carry and seasonality models, and has deliberately avoided introducing additional trend models, which Rantanen argues are highly correlated with one another. He describes the approach as a next-generation managed futures framework that combines multiple low-correlation return drivers. Mandatum's regime engine uses an ensemble of models to distinguish between nuanced and radical regime shifts, and is integrated into the core investment and risk framework rather than run as an overlay. Trend speed is also varied by regime, and the firm cites early-warning signals that prompted defensive adjustments during the August 2024 Japanese yen crisis and the April 2025 tariff turmoil.

The fund can also vary its risk levels, as it does not target constant volatility or constant risk. Risk is managed through model selection and position sizing, with the system reducing conviction when signals are noisy. Positions are netted at the portfolio level before execution, and risk limits including daily position sizing limits, VaR thresholds and concentration rules apply. The portfolio never holds 100% or zero exposure to any of its four broad factor families.

Rantanen grounds the continued relevance of trend in behavioural biases, business cycles, fund flows, shifting market frictions and AI-driven trend formation. He notes that the fund does not explicitly target crisis alpha, but says low correlations to traditional assets and positive performance during market stress have historically resulted from the design. The source article is a Hedge Fund Journal profile published 2 November 2026 in Issue 180.