Hiddenite Capital Partners, the London-based long-short hedge fund led by Ryan Packard, posted a 102% net return in 2025, marking its second straight year of triple-digit gains following a nearly 120% return in 2024, according to a report by Institutional Investor.
The report cites investors familiar with the matter as revealing the performance of the fund, which was founded in 2020 and manages around $400m, employing a concentrated global equity strategy combined with disciplined use of options and credit positions.
The fund primarily invests in old-economy sectors including industrials, materials, energy, financials, and technology. Its multi-security approach, which mixes equities, options, and credit, is designed to capture upside while controlling downside risk.
In 2025, roughly 70% of the fund’s gains came from equities, 20% from options, and 10% from credit. Forty-two positions each contributed more than 100 basis points to performance, with ten names adding over 450 basis points apiece. Even excluding the top ten contributors, Hiddenite’s portfolio outperformed the S&P 500.
Packard’s strategy relies on buying core single-name equity positions alongside medium- to long-dated call options, with options exposure typically representing 25–100 basis points of premium. The approach is opportunistic, aiming to amplify upside while protecting capital. In its third-quarter letter, Hiddenite highlighted that combining cash equity and options provides “the greatest upside capture while limiting downside.”
At year-end, the fund held 36 long equity positions, 81 shorts, 22 long options positions, and four short options, with net credit exposure of just 0.8%. Geographic allocation was skewed toward Europe (47.4% net long) and Asia (22.3% net long), while North America was 11.7% net short — a reversal from the third quarter, when the fund was net long in the US.
Hiddenite’s top five year-end long positions accounted for 31% of the portfolio and included Danish wind turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems, Irish building materials firm CRH, Taiwanese cloud infrastructure provider Wiwynn, German energy giant Siemens Energy, and US-based Comfort Systems. Four of the five were non-US companies, reflecting the fund’s international focus.
