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 organisation to have the highest probability of delivering strong returns to investors, we believe it is crucial that managers have aligned interests with investors. Therefore, our team has their financial assets invested in CARN. We also have a fee model aligned with when our clients make money.
Long-term
We have a long-term focus in everything we do. This applies to both 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 organisation to be fully independent of other business lines and organisations. Independence ensures that other business interests do not interfere with investment management activities and minimises organisational bureaucracy and corporate politics. Therefore, CARN Capital is mainly owned by its employees and is fully independent from other organisations.
How we operate
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. We believe that promoting environmental and social characteristics can create significant value for investors.
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 cheaply.
Under-researched companies
We have an all-cap strategy, which means we can invest in small, mid-sized, and large companies. However, we favour small and mid-sized companies because we believe 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 medium-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 criticised 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 the 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 less than to deliver the highest possible risk-adjusted return to our investors over time.
Our team
We are a close-knit team of dedicated analysts with shared values. We are driven by a passion to contribute to a sustainable future and provide a return on your investments.
Andreas Bomann-Larsen
Andreas began his career as an equity analyst at First Securities before joining the investment team at Formuesforvaltning, where he was responsible for the Nordic listed equity portfolios and hedge fund portfolios. He was also co-head of global equities. In 2013, he founded CARN Capital.
Andreas holds a degree in business administration with a specialisation in finance from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). He is also a certified portfolio manager and has completed studies in advanced valuation at the Norwegian Society of Financial Analysts (NFF) and the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).
Olav Sirevaag
Olav Sirevaag has more than 21 years of international experience from leading roles in the offshore drilling industry. For the past three years, he has been Chief Accounting Officer of the listed company Northern Ocean, where he was responsible for the establishment and management of the company's office in Dublin, as well as building an accounting and tax team from scratch. He has previously held senior positions in Northern Drilling, Seadrill and Transocean.
Olav has broad experience in financial management and regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions, including Norway, Singapore, Ireland, USA and Namibia. He also has extensive investment experience of his own, with over 20 years as an active investor in the stock market and other asset classes. Olav holds a master's degree in economics from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).
Jostein Rødland
Jostein has a background in accounting and project management. He previously worked at Knif Regnskap, an accounting firm. Jostein holds a bachelor's degree in economics and administration from OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University.
Marta Fularczyk
Marta Fularczyk has a degree in economics, accounting and management from the University of Southeast Norway, and a background in operations, including as a production operator at Norfersk.
As Operations Manager, she is responsible for tasks within fund operations, administration and compliance.
