Alma, Tidan launch $100 million volatility arbitrage fund

Alma Capital and Tidan Capital launched the Alma Tidan NOVA Volatility Arbitrage Fund on July 31 through Alma Platinum IV SICAV. The fund has more than $100 million in commitments from over 10 institutional investors.

The capital came entirely from external investors through the firms’ joint distribution efforts. Alma did not provide seed capital.

NOVA trades single-stock and equity index options, futures, swaps and foreign exchange. It seeks pricing differences across option strikes and maturities that can emerge when hedging activity, market flows and investor behavior affect supply and demand. Such differences can widen during geopolitical uncertainty, economic instability and company earnings announcements.

Magnus Linder and Dennis Karlsson manage the fund. Each has about 20 years of experience in derivatives trading, risk management and execution. Both joined Tidan in 2024 after managing a similar strategy at a Nordic bank.

Tidan handles portfolio management, investment decisions, trading and risk management. Alma acts as the UCITS management company and platform operator, providing the fund’s infrastructure, operational framework and access to European institutional investors.

The partnership was created specifically for the NOVA launch. The firms worked together on the fund structure and capital raising. They have not announced plans to launch additional Tidan strategies on Alma’s platform, although they remain open to future products.

The strategy has an estimated capacity of about $4 billion.

Alma was founded in Luxembourg in 2006 by Chief Executive Henri Vernhes. It has about $4.5 billion in assets under management or advisory and offices in London, Paris and Luxembourg. The firm focuses on bringing specialist investment managers and strategies into the UCITS market.

Tidan was founded in Sweden in 2021 by former employees of Brummer & Partners. The firm develops specialised investment strategies and is led by Chief Investment Officer Michael Falken.