Our business principles
Now more than ever, strong business principles are essential when you navigate the market. We base all our business upon a set of principles.
Transparency
Most investors want to be able to monitor their investments closely, and therefore value transparency. We are willing to disclose everything we do to our investors, and we communicate in detail the development of the investments and the business in our monthly investor letters and performance updates.
Aligned Interests
For an investment management organization to have the highest probability of delivering strong returns to the investors, we believe it is crucial that the managers have aligned interests with the investors. Therefore, our team has their financial asset invested in CARN. Also, we have a fee model aligned to when our clients make money.
Long-term
We have a long-term focus in everything we do. This goes both for our investments and our business decisions. We look for clients who share our long-term perspective, we invest in the absolute best systems and infrastructure, and we always hire people with a long-term perspective. We are here for the long haul.
Focused
To achieve the highest level of performance in any field, whether it is in sports, music, academia, or in business, we believe it is imperative to be focused. This is particularly the case within capital management. Therefore, we have only one business philosophy and only one investment strategy.
Independent
We believe it is of utmost importance for an investment organization to be fully independent of other business lines and organizations. Independence secures that other business interests do not interfere with the investment management activities and minimize organizational bureaucracy and corporate politics. Therefore, CARN Capital is mainly owned by the employees and fully independent from other organizations.
How we work
We base our strategy on time tested and sound principles ensuring that your investments are sustainable and profitable.
Sustainability
Sustainable Investment is an umbrella term covering a range of different activities such as ethical exclusion, ESG integration, and positive selection through thematic and impact investing. It is CARN’s view that, on their own, these individual approaches often fall short of delivering both sustainability and profitability. So instead of choosing one, we have gone for “all of the above”. We believe this is the best way to grow our investors’ capital and contribute to a more sustainable future.
Value investing and fundamental research
Value investing means investing with a disciplined focus on how the investments are valued vs. underlying earnings, cash flows and assets, and only investing when the investments are valued cheap or moderate. There is solid empirical evidence that value investing has been the best way of managing money over time. Therefore, we invest according to this investment philosophy. In practice, this implies a strong focus on fundamental analysis and valuation (i.e. not overpaying for assets).
Quality companies
Empirical evidence has shown that quality companies outperform the market over time. Therefore, we tend to focus our search for quality companies. Quality companies have strong balance sheets (low debt), a track record of delivering high returns to shareholders, and are in industries with high barriers to entry and good prospects. We continuously search for and monitor such companies and will invest in these when they are priced moderately or cheap.
Under-researched companies
We have an all-cap strategy, which means we can invest in small, mid-sized, and large companies. However, we favor small and mid-sized companies because we think the highest probability of finding good investments is among such companies. There are several reasons for that: These companies are less covered by the sell-side; large funds often cannot invest in these companies due to fund size issues; it is often easier to get meetings with senior management; and these companies are often less complex and more focused than large conglomerates. We have a flexible strategy and can therefore harvest the opportunities we see among mid-sized and small companies.
True active management
There has been a lot of focus in the financial press on how active the so-called active funds have been, often measured by the active share parameter. Several large funds have been criticized for having a portfolio that is too close to the index. We strongly believe that if a fund is marketed as an active fund, it should be truly active and not a “closet” index fund. Therefore, we do not focus on which shares have high weights in the different indices, and our portfolio will typically have large deviations from index and a high active share. We do not focus on how the index performs either since our goal is not to outperform a given index. We have an absolute return approach. Our goal is nothing else than to deliver the highest possible risk-adjusted return to our investors over time.
Andreas Bomann-Larsen
abl@carncapital.com
+47 957 02 490
Andreas started his career as equity analyst in First Securities before he joined the investment team in Formuesforvaltning where he was responsible for the Nordic public equity portfolios and hedge fund portfolios. He was also co-head for global equities. In 2013 he founded CARN Capital.
Andreas has a Master of Science Degree in Business Administration from the Norwegian School of Economics. He is also an Authorized Portfolio Manager and has completed studies in Advanced Valuation from The Norwegian Society of Financial Analysts and Norwegian School of Economics.
Erlend Godager
eg@carncapital.com
+47 902 76 925
Erlend started his career as an equity analyst in ABG Sundal Collier in 2019 where he covered the seafood, technology, and consumer sectors. He has a Master of Science Degree in Business Administration from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). During his studies, he had internships with ABG Sundal Collier and DNB Markets as well as being an active member of Børsklubben, a joint investment company owned by students at NHH. Erlend joined CARN in January 2022.
Mathias Furnes
mf@carncapital.com
+47 469 50 949
Mathias has worked 11 years at Nordea, including 4 years in Private Banking. Through his background he has gained solid experience with investor relations and customer service. He holds a degree from BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway.
Jon Audun Kvalbein
jak@carncapital.com
+47 456 71 168
Jon Audun started his career at the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in 2007. As a Senior Advisor he has gained extensive experience in public administration and national energy policies, including relevant EU legislation. His tasks have been to serve the political leadership by giving support to the political decision-making process and preparing policy documents. He also served many years in the secretariat of the Norm Price board which sets tax reference prices for all Norwegian oil production.
Jon Audun holds a Master of Science degree in Development Management from London School of Economics and a Master of Science degree in Economics from the University of Bergen.
Fredrik Lauvland
fl@carncapital.com
+47 915 27 495
Fredrik has a decade of experience with management, project management and coaching in various non-profit organizations. He also has experience with business administration, entrepreneurship and development at the social entrepreneurship company Crews. Fredrik is currently finishing his bachelor degree in Business Administration at BI Norwegian Business School.