Stephen Rees

Melissa Hill and and I founded Eleos Capital Advisors in the summer of 2020. After working in concert for over a decade, with a healthy appreciation of our respective strengths, we decided our partnership was strong enough to forge an exciting new venture – our Second Act, together, in asset management. So what is Eleos? As it says in the name, we are operating in an advisory capacity, bringing our investment research, risk management and strategic business building skills to a synergistic partnership with a like-minded firm. Eleos gives us the opportunity to enjoy professional freedom and intellectual stimulation – whilst working with trusted friends, colleagues and investors in the asset management community. The Eleos investment thesis is not to deviate too far from our tried and tested methodologies whilst being forward looking and appreciative of new market dynamics and revised investor focus. For many months, we have been building out an equity investment strategy that is systematic and market neutral. What is new, however, is that ESG criteria are a priority in the stock selection process. Increasingly, stocks that score highly on a number of ESG metrics are rewarded more than the ESG laggards. This is not news. However, whereas in the early days of ESG data it was hard to prove value, now we have identified a method to enhance returns by explicitly tilting to ‘good’ companies versus ‘poor’ ones. The incorporation of ESG principles in our lives is now the norm and not the exception. This move has been strengthened further by responses to the pandemic and demographic shifts. Eleos has found a way to adapt proven investment strategies to accommodate these changes, in a manner that boosts available alpha, whilst strengthening risk management in the portfolio.