Investment companies
NAV discount: where it stands, what it is made of and how to trade it
The discount to net asset value is one of the most watched measures on the Stockholm exchange. This is how we read it, with Investor and Industrivärden as examples, and how the trade is actually done.
By AlgoBee · Explanation updated
What is a discount to NAV?
Net asset value (NAV) per share is the value of a company’s assets minus its liabilities, divided by the number of shares. A NAV discount means the share price is below that value; a price above it is a premium.
Illustrative calculation: NAV per share of SEK 100 and a share price of SEK 85 give a 15% discount: (100 − 85) ÷ 100 × 100. At a price of SEK 110, the same calculation gives −10%, meaning a 10% premium. A 15% discount is not a guaranteed 15% return: NAV and the share price can both change, and the discount can persist.
Data snapshot: 28 September 2026. The company figures and historical charts below use AlgoBee’s own NAV estimates as of that date, not live quotes or the companies’ official reported NAVs. This explanatory update does not refresh those figures.
The discount on its own says little
An investment company rarely trades exactly at its net asset value. The gap, a discount or a premium, has lasting causes: how much of the assets are unlisted, the company's costs, its ownership and how the market rates its management. Companies therefore have different normal levels, and a list sorted by the size of the discount mostly shows those differences.
The useful question is whether today's discount is large or small for this particular company. The answer comes from comparing it with the company's own history.
Compare with the company's own history, but choose the window carefully
Discount, % of NAV (below zero = premium) Five-year average ±1 standard deviation Last year's average
Investor, daily discount over the past five years. Source: AlgoBee’s NAV estimate; snapshot 28 September 2026, not official reported NAV.
On 28 September 2026, Investor traded at a premium of 2.8% to our calculation of its net asset value. Over five years the discount averaged 9.6%, with a standard deviation of 5.2 percentage points. The level on that date was below 97% of all days in the period, among the smallest discounts in five years.
But look at the last year: there the average is only 3.4%. The discount has not just swung around a fixed level; it has narrowed steadily since 2022. Against the five-year average the premium on that date looks extreme, against the last year much less so. Industrivärden, which is almost entirely listed, shows the same pattern: a premium of 3.5% on that date, an average discount of 6.8% over five years but 2.5% over the last year.
The lesson is that a single historical average is a weak benchmark when the level itself moves. We therefore look at several windows at once, one, three and five years, and at an estimate of the normal level that adapts over time.
What the discount is made of
About 76% of Investor's assets are listed holdings, valued at market prices every day. The rest includes Patricia Industries, unlisted companies that Investor values itself and reports once a quarter.
The share price tells you what the market pays for the unlisted part: take the share price, subtract the listed holdings at market value and add back net debt. What remains is the market's price for the unlisted holdings. For Investor in this snapshot it is about 11.7% more than the company's own valuation. The premium therefore sits in the view of the unlisted holdings, not in the listed shares, which are marked at market by definition.
The unlisted part must not stay at its reported value between reports. If it does, the discount becomes a bet that unlisted assets are never revalued, and it looks widest exactly when such assets fall in value. We adjust the unlisted part daily using listed comparable companies.
How the discount is traded
The classic trade buys the investment company and sells short its listed holdings in proportion to how much of the net asset value each one represents. For 100,000 SEK of Investor, that is about 76,000 SEK spread across the listed holdings in this snapshot. The price moves of the holdings then offset each other, and what remains is the discount and the unlisted part.
Three things matter in practice:
- Nested holdings. Lundbergs owns Industrivärden. Shorting Industrivärden outright puts Industrivärden's own discount inside the hedge. The right hedge shorts Industrivärden's holdings instead.
- A premium is a different risk from a discount. Selling a premium has limited upside and open-ended downside if the premium keeps growing. Size it smaller, and do not short a premium that is still expanding.
- The calendar. Discounts move more around annual meetings and dividends, and borrowed shares can be recalled. The cost of borrowing also eats into the return.
How AlgoBee does it
- Net asset value is calculated continuously. Holdings are entered quarter by quarter, listed ones are marked to market and the unlisted part is adjusted with listed comparables.
- The calculation is reconciled with every report. When a company publishes its net asset value, we go through holdings, share counts, net debt and the unlisted valuation, and adjust until our calculation matches the reported figure on the report date. New share issues, splits and changed holdings are caught there, before they can affect the signal.
- The signal is the discount against its own history over several windows, together with a moving normal level that follows the discount as it shifts over time.
- Positions are built in steps. The further the discount moves from its normal level, the more of the position is added, rather than all at once.
- Every day is explained. The change in the discount is broken down into the holdings, the unlisted part and the share price, so you can see whether a move is real or comes from a stale valuation.
- Both legs go on together. Buying the company and shorting the basket are handled as one trade, so the position is not left with only one leg.
See the basket strategies in a demo Glossary: NAV discount
Research: NAV discounts in Swedish investment companies, our relative value model simulated across Investor, Industrivärden, Lundbergs, Öresund and Svolder.
Figures are AlgoBee's own calculations as of 28 September 2026, not the companies' official net asset values, and are not investment advice.