Sam Kovacs
Co-founder of Havelet Bay Capital
An investor and system builder focused on
asymmetric returns, volatility, and capital durability.
About
Sam Kovacs is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Havelet Bay Capital, where he leads investment strategy, portfolio construction and risk management across the firm’s systematic investment mandates.
His responsibility centers on balancing the hunt for alpha with strict capital protection measures, through the design of investment systems intended to operate across changing market regimes.
Prior to Havelet Bay Capital, Sam founded and led a successful macro and equity research opearation.
His work included continuous coverage of public equities, sector allocation, and macro phenomena.
Sam Kovacs was born in the United Kingdom, but spent most of his childhood in Luxembourg and France. He then obtained a B.B.A at HEC Montreal and a Masters in Economics at Sciences Po Paris.
He has lived in multiple countries on 4 continents and speaks multiple languages.
He is currently based in Dubai, in the UAE.
Investment philosophy.
Sam Kovacs’ investment philosophy is built around the avoidance of uncompensated risk. He does not accept the premise that strong returns require excessive exposure.
His approach is deliberately style agnostic. Micro and macro analysis, value and momentum, fundamentals and technical inputs are treated as tools rather than identities. The objective is coherence at the portfolio level rather than adherence to any single framework.
Volatility is incorporated rather than suppressed. It informs position sizing, timing, and opportunity selection, particularly in environments driven by flows, positioning, and non-economic behavior.
Leverage and discretion need to be carefully tamed, and planned in the system’s design. Sam believes it is the combination of leverage and poor psychological control which lead investors to ruin.
Discretion must therefore be applied selectively. In systematic strategies, discretion is intentionally minimized, if not outright suppressed. Where discretion is permitted, it is bounded by defined rules.
Sam Kovacs believes there is persistent edge to be found in fragmented markets where non-economic demand and supply distort prices and structural features allow inefficiencies to persist. The role of the investor is not to predict, but the build systems capable of operating under those conditions and surviving their reversals.
Havelet Bay Capital
Havelet Bay Capital is an alternative investment firm (a hedge fund) co-founded by Sam Kovacs to implement systematic and semi-systematic strategies across public markets.
The firm focuses on equities, derivatives with an emphasis on volatility-aware positioning, capital efficiency, and drawdown control. Research is driven by quantitative signals, with discretionary oversight applied at the portfolio level.
Havelet Bay Capital was built to prioritize process over personality and long-term resilience over short-term performance chasing. The firm’s flagship.
The firm’s first fund reached a two-year live track record in February 2026. The strategy has been operated through multiple market environments, with a consistent emphasis on risk control, capital preservation, and disciplined execution.
Additional strategies are in development. Funds II and III are currently in the build and validation phase, expanding the firm’s mandate while maintaining the same portfolio construction and risk management principles.