About

Our Story

A three-minute film about the thinking, culture and research process behind Kernow.

3 minutes Subtitled

Our founding story

The rain was biblical.
London was miserable.

Alyx Wood

Ed was waiting in a coffee shop. We had met five years earlier on a potato farm. Smart, relentless and the sort of man you trust. I had spent years dreaming about this moment. Now I just needed Ed to say yes.

In 2019, Kernow was born. A contrarian investment manager specialising exclusively in UK equities.

The timing was terrible.

That was rather the point. Ed had been head of investment research at an investment bank. I had been investing since I was 15, initially with more enthusiasm than wisdom. By the time we met, we had both noticed something.

Everyone seemed to agree about Britain. Unloved. The UK stock market had become the financial equivalent of a seaside town in November. We thought this was wonderful.

Human beings have always struggled to distinguish an unpopular thing from a bad thing. Kernow was built to exploit that confusion.

We hunt for good businesses hiding behind bad stories and bad businesses hiding behind good ones.

This is bigger than us, though.

Mediocrity is now almost free. Imagine being back at school and being told everyone will receive the average mark of the class. Suddenly, trying harder earns you nothing. The average falls and everyone shares equally in the decline. What does that teach our children?

We chose something else. To invest our family’s capital alongside a group of rich and smart clients. Preferably both. We cannot promise to always be right. We can promise not to be boring.

Before you ask, Kernow is Cornish for Cornwall. My favourite place. As a child, I would disappear down to the beach and spend hours investigating rock pools. From above they looked empty. Get down on your knees and suddenly there were crabs, fish and entire worlds.

The ice cream was pretty good too.

Cornwall taught me something I later rediscovered in markets: the view is usually better when the crowd is somewhere else.

If you believe in thinking for yourself.
If you believe Britain is worth a closer look.
If you still enjoy finding what others miss.

Join the Kernow Club.

Leadership

Chief Investment Officer

Alyx Wood

Alyx is the Chief Investment Officer of Kernow Asset Management. He is responsible for trading and investment research.

Before co-founding Kernow, Alyx worked as a Fund Manager at Downing LLP, Vice President at Deutsche Bank AG, and Management Consultant at KPMG LLP. He is a consultant for several family offices and has completed the Non-Executive Directors Programme (BVCA). Alyx is a Qualified Chartered Accountant (ICAS) and holds an Investment Management Certificate (CFA Institute) and a BA in Accounting and Economics.

alyx@kernowam.com

Chief Executive Officer

Edward Hugo

Edward manages the company’s resources and executes Kernow’s strategy.

He began his career analysing technology and cleantech start-up businesses before starting his own company in the consulting sector.

Edward was previously the Head of Equity Research at boutique investment bank VSA Capital. He holds an MSc in Microsystems & Nanotechnology and a BSc in Mathematics & Artificial Intelligence.

edward@kernowam.com

Operational expertise

Senior Compliance Consultant

Gabriella Baber

Gaby Baber is an independent Senior Compliance Consultant. She has over 15 years of compliance consultancy experience in asset management.

She founded Lansdowne Consultancy Limited in 2011 to provide bespoke and personalised compliance consultancy services.

Previously, she was a compliance consultant for Leale-Green Limited. She has an LLB Hons Degree in Law and was called to the Bar.

Chief Operating Officer

Anil Joshi

Anil Joshi is Chief Operating Officer. He runs Saffron Consulting Limited and has over 30 years of hedge fund, banking and accounting experience.

Previously, Anil was COO of Titan Capital Management, Portland Hill Capital and Old Lane London and CFO of Silver Ridge and COMAC Capital. Anil also ran Product, Financial Control and Operations teams at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse in London and Deutsche Bank in Tokyo.

He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PwC and has a First Class BSc in Banking and International Finance.

Board

Non-Executive Director

Krishnan Muthappan

Krishnan is a Singaporean serial entrepreneur. He is passionate about building businesses and has successfully founded, managed and sold several in the agricultural, financial services, technology and recycling sectors in Singapore and abroad over the last two decades.

Most recently, Krishnan successfully exited his investment in remittance banking to a global provider of foreign exchange services and his agri-business in Papua New Guinea to the world’s biggest plantation group.

Krishnan is a board member of two Singapore Government Statutory Boards: the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and the Hindu Endowment Board (HEB).

Before his own ventures, he worked in the Gulf and Singapore in management consulting, corporate finance, investment banking and commodity trading. He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce and is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a Cost and Management Accountant.

Non-Executive Director

Neil Shillito

Neil’s first career was as a Navigating Officer in the merchant navy, first as a Cadet with P&O Lines and then with Blue Star Line, mainly on refrigerated cargo vessels sailing worldwide. He qualified as a Master Mariner in 1982.

He joined a leading insurance company in 1986, advising individuals and corporates on pension schemes and investment planning. In 1996 he became a partner in an established independent practice.

In 2001 he founded SG Wealth Management Ltd based on the principles of complete openness and transparency and a culture of “clients come first”. The company grew to a business with 33 employees, two significant offices in East Anglia and £350m of client assets under management.

In 2015 Neil joined Downing LLP, managing his investment fund, which was launched in 2007. Alyx Wood was appointed co-manager of this fund and worked closely with Neil for three years until 2018.

Non-Executive Director

Carol L’Heveder

Carol is a corporate and financial services lawyer with over 30 years of international experience, notably at Linklaters, as European general counsel for Merrill Lynch private banking, head of legal EMEA for State Street and head of regulatory affairs at Invesco Asset Management.

She is currently a partner at Gunner Cooke LLP, advising investment firms and entrepreneurs on FCA regulatory and conduct matters, corporate governance and senior management responsibility.

She is also a non-executive director and is currently the shareholder representative on the board of Flarin Holdings Limited, which is part of Infirst Healthcare, an OTC pharmaceutical group based in the UK and the US.

Independent Adviser

Graham Smith

Graham has been a professional trader for over 25 years and was last Head of Execution at investment bank Liberum.

Graham joined Dillon Read as a graduate in 1996 before moving to Salomon Brothers a year later as a specialist Scandinavian and French trader. He started the TMT sector pitch at Salomon Smith Barney, later to become Citigroup, where he was promoted to Managing Director, running the Pan-European and UK Mid Cap cash trading teams.

After Citi, he became Global Head of Cash Equity Trading at Unicredit, running the Trading and Sales Trading teams until 2012. Graham then moved onto the buy side to work for Trafalgar Capital in London.