Cerno Capital was founded in 2007 as a partnership by Nick Hornby and James Spence with the objective of providing exceptional investment management and service to individuals, families, charities and institutions.
Nick and James had spent over 20 years each in global investment firms as analysts and also in management roles before establishing the firm with their own capital. The firm has built its capabilities in analysis, advice, portfolio construction, reporting and service.
The firm’s cadre of outstanding professionals is supported by experienced advisers drawn from the investment and business worlds and many of these exceptional individuals sit on the firm’s two advisory boards.
As a boutique investment manager, we are flexible in the manner we service our investors to best meet their needs.
How we think
We think and invest globally, sharpening our focus on 10 year trends.
We are happy to exclude large areas of markets and industries that do not align with our ethics or lack the secure growth dynamics that we favour. We think about all aspects of sustainability, well beyond a check-list approach.
The team debates all investments without any dedicated specialisation. Whilst every portfolio is given individual manager or co-manager oversight, idea input is highly flexible throughout the team.
We ignore benchmarks when constructing portfolios. This is based on the idea that, if you want to outperform, you should not own the portfolio that everybody else owns.
How We Invest
We are return seeking, selecting investments from a global universe.
We emphasise capital protection, especially in periods of stress.
We place your capital in a broad array of attractive assets to reduce the risk of permanent capital loss.
We operate two broad strategies. The first is global multi asset which seeks to blend together different asset types to achieve an above inflation return. The second is concentrated, high conviction equities which invests in leading franchises for above equity index returns.
How we can help
The word Cerno is originally from Latin, also modern Italian, and means “to select”. We take time to understand investment objectives, helping you select investments to meet your needs.
We aim to bridge investment understanding in a common sense way, free of jargon.
You can expect individual attention, access to the partners and relationships with several points of contact at the office.
Away from the office, we regularly host events to elevate and support causes, as well as introduce inspirational people from a wide array of callings, not solely finance. We are involved in gender initiatives, the environment, food chain provision, animal welfare, mental health and the arts.
Our partnership culture enables us to be long term in our thinking, aligned with the interests of our investors.