Alvine Capital Podcast

Episode 6: Nate Kirk of Everside Capital Partners: When to Let it Run, and When to Hold Water - From Rowing to Private Credit

Nate Kirk is the co-founder of Everside Capital Partners, a private credit fund focused on the lower-middle market based in New York City. He founded the firm together with Moritz Poehl in 2016, and was previously a portfolio manager at Third Avenue Management, where he focused on stressed and distressed credit, special situations and flexible credit, and prior to that worked as a Trader and High Yield Credit Researcher at J P Morgan. Our conversation starts with Nate’s early education and the passion that he developed for rowing in his teens and beyond. While he admits that he didn’t always have the “best form” as a rower, his passion, discipline and dedication to the sport distinguished him and taught him the characteristics of grit and perseverance that proved to be useful in the corporate world. We hear about how he had to channel that grit to find his first entry into the world of finance, and about the lessons that the volatility in the financial world presented. These lessons related to client treatment – particularly in times of challenge, dealing with counterparties and seeking pockets of return along the road less traveled. We conclude with reflections on how personal setbacks can lead to a reckoning of what it is that truly matters in life and on the challenges – and rewards of finding a solid work/life balance. Alvine Talks Podcasts are co-hosted by Tom Raber and Aoifinn Devitt and aim to bring a deeper understanding of the people and processes behind the strategies that drive differentiated returns.

Episode 5: Bo Knudsen of C WorldWide Asset Management: A High Conviction Approach - in Portfolios and in Life

Bo Knudsen is the CEO and Global Equity Portfolio Manager at C WorldWide Asset Management. Bo has worked in portfolio management since 1989, marking the start of a distinguished career in global equities. Prior to joining C WorldWide Asset Management in 1994 he worked for five years as a global portfolio manager with Danske Capital in Copenhagen and ultimately held the position as Head of International Equity Investments. In 1998 Bo moved and subsequently joined Nordea Investment management as Executive Director and Head of Equities. He re-joined C WorldWide Asset Management team in 2001 where he has remained ever since. The conversation, hosted by Tom Raber of Alvine Capital, and Aoifinn Devitt, starts with Bo's upbringing in a rural village in Denmark, and his education path to finance. We discuss then his approach to stock picking, hold period and portfolio construction, and how the high conviction approach works for him. We detour a little then in to the political backdrop to investing today and what that means for scenario analysis and forecasting. Our discussion concludes with his life outside investing, and Bo discusses his high conviction and focused approach there.  Alvine Capital is a specialist European placement agent founded in 2005. With offices in London and Stockholm, Alvine seeks to uncover best in class investment managers around the globe and bring them to the European Institutional market.

Episode 4: Bjorn Thelander: From the Frontier to the Mainstream and Back Again

In this Alvine Talks podcast Tom Raber and Aoifinn Devitt sit down with Bjorn Thelander, who is an experienced Family Office manager with broad international investment and industrial experience.  His background is varied and involved many stints in emerging markets, punctuated by market crises which often necessitated a pivot - or two.  We discuss how this shaped Bjorn in terms of his world view, his appetite for risk and his tolerance for volatility. We then trace his journey through investment banking, investment management, time at food-packaging giant Tetra Laval, a stint as an entrepreneur and his most recent role, as CIO at the James Dyson family office, Weybourne.  He recently left this role and we discuss what the next chapter holds. Bjorn has a wide range of interests and experience, and this is reflected in his taste for "off the run" investments.  We discuss the opportunity in Argentina and the reforms ushered in by Javier Milei, and debate the promise of Bitcoin and other digital assets, where Bjorn has had an early interest. On the personal side we examine Bjorn's competitive nature, his love of sports and recent books and other interests.

Episode 3: Stephen Isaacs - Macro Strategist and Advisor to Alvine Capital - Confessions of an Unapologetic Contrarian

Stephen Isaacs is a strategic advisor to Alvine Capital, and an angel investor who has held a number of roles as non-executive director and chair and is a frequent commentator on macro and economic matters.  We wanted to sit down with him to get insights into his current macro reviews and peel back the layers a little to ask about his approach to the economy and investing and gather some lessons learned from past setbacks. We start by discussing the approach Stephen takes to investing and to distilling macro noise into investable theses. We look at his own biases which get in the way of him being truly long-term, and look at some fixes to protect us from our worst tendencies as investors, which usually involve an overly acute focus on the short term.  Our conversation then goes free-range, we discuss topics as diverse as governance, the upcoming US election, the behaviour of commodities, absolute return funds and traditional portfolio protection hedges.

Episode 3: Peter Dencik - Non-Executive Chairman at Alvine - Governance That Does What it Says on the Tin

Peter Dencik is currently non-executive chairman at Alvine Capital. He has had a long career in finance, having started his career as an economcis rofessor where he worked in two universities in Denmark.  He then spent almost a decade at the PKA – one of Denmark’s largest pension funds, and then moved to London where he held various roles in asset management firms. He currently splits his time between Paris, Stockholm and London. Our conversation traces Peter's movement from academic life into practice and briefly out again. He discusses the challenges and opportunities in running of of Denmark's largest pension funds, and paints a picture of the regulatory backdrop and political landscape at the time.  Moving then to the London phase of his career and his views on leadership, management, governance, the role of the non-executive and other compelling insights. The common thread of humanity, respect for the dignity of every professional and the importance of putting the firm and its shareholders first are lessons for all of us.