Finance

Our perspective

Long/short investing with a disciplined view of risk

Through Carsons Capital, our U.S. investment business, our financial strategy combines long and short positions with the selective use of derivatives. We seek long-term capital appreciation while remaining attentive to capital preservation: investing in businesses we believe offer attractive value, taking short exposure where our analysis identifies vulnerability, and using hedging instruments to manage specific risks. This public-market approach sits alongside selective private-company investments within our broader family-office portfolio.

• Long positions express conviction in a business's fundamentals, valuation and capacity to create value over time. Our analysis considers earnings quality, cash generation, balance-sheet resilience and competitive positioning, with our cross-sector experience providing a practical lens on the underlying business.
• Short positions express a different view: a security may be overvalued, its fundamentals may be weakening, or its business model may face structural pressure. Short exposure can also offset part of the market or sector exposure of long holdings. It is not inherently protective: a shorted security can rise sharply, borrowing costs can change, and a short sale can produce theoretically unlimited losses.
• Derivatives, including options and futures, can be used to adjust exposure or hedge a defined risk without necessarily buying or selling the underlying holdings. Their purpose depends on the instrument and position: an option can provide an asymmetric payoff, while a futures position can alter market exposure. Premiums, expiry dates, leverage, liquidity and margin requirements all affect the outcome.
• Risk is assessed at portfolio level as well as position level. Gross exposure captures the scale of long and short positions; net exposure captures their directional balance. A low net exposure does not mean low risk: concentration, correlations, leverage, short squeezes and liquidity can still drive losses. Position sizing, scenario analysis and attention to financing needs are central considerations, not guarantees of capital protection.
• Our investment horizon is long term, but market exposures require ongoing reassessment. We distinguish a temporary price movement from a change in the investment thesis, and consider public-market liquidity alongside the longer horizons of private investments. Technology supports analysis and information management; it does not replace judgment or remove investment risk.