Invest

Main features

2021 was another strong year for the Nordic region’s stock markets and the VINX Benchmark Index ended the year up 23.8%

Ferd Invest delivered a positive return of 13.9%

Ferd Invest’s total return for 2021 was NOK 440 million

Ferd Invest joined the board of the Norwegian Forum for Responsible and Sustainable Investment (Norsif) in order to contribute to the organisation’s high-quality sustainability work

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Market

The scale of the economic recovery in the wake of the coronavirus shock in 2020 has been formidable, and led to significant growth in corporate earnings over the course of 2021. This drove the stock market higher. We also saw that some companies where share prices performed very well as a result of the coronavirus lockdown in 2020 saw significantly weaker performance in 2021 as a result of investors turning towards exposure to a world without lockdown restrictions. Towards the end of 2021, we also saw a significant increase in inflation, which created uncertainty over the outlook for future increases in interest rates and for company profit margins.

Return

Ferd Invest’s portfolio produced a return of 13.9% in 2021. This was 9.9 percentage points less than the increase in the Nordic VINX Benchmark Index.

The investments that made the biggest positive contribution to Ferd Invest’s return were the industrial companies Atlas Copco and DSV, which gained 50% and 45% respectively.

The companies that made the biggest negative contribution were the technology companies Link Mobility and Stilfront, which were down by 60% and 48% respectively.

The overall return delivered by Ferd Invest in 2021 was NOK 440 million.

There were very large differences in 2021 in the returns delivered by the various sectors of the market. Sectors sensitive to interest rates, such as the banking sector, performed well in anticipation of increases in interest rates. At the same time this interest rate outlook led to weak returns for the technology sector in particular as well as companies exposed to the green shift, since these companies are typically only expected to generate earnings in the future, and in some cases quite some time into the future.

Portfolio

The market value of Ferd Invest’s portfolio at 31 December 2021 was NOK 3.5 billion. The portfolio’s investments are divided between the three Scandinavian stock markets, as well as the Finnish stock market. The largest investments at the close of 2021 were Novo Nordisk, Hexagon, Sampo and Lerøy.

Organisation

At the end of 2021, the Ferd Invest team consisted of André Buhagen, Marius Therkelsen and Joakim Gjersøe.