Our history

A quiet firm, built slowly.

Northwind has done the same thing the same way since 2009. We own a few exceptional businesses and hold them for years. This is how it began, and why so little of it has changed.

The beginning

It started with a refusal.

By 2009, Eleanor Vance had spent fourteen years allocating capital inside a large institution, and had grown tired of what it rewarded. Activity for its own sake. Ownership too broad to understand. A clock that reset every ninety days. Northwind started as a refusal of all of that.

The idea was almost embarrassingly simple. Find a few durable, cash-generative businesses. Understand them completely. Buy them at a sensible price. Then comes the hard part. Do very little, for a very long time, and let the compounding happen inside the businesses rather than in the brokerage account.

It was never meant to be a large firm, and it has resisted becoming one. Staying small is not modesty. It is the strategy. A handful of holdings can be known properly. A handful of partners can answer the phone themselves. Past a certain size, scale starts to eat the patience the firm is built on.

Westminster at dusk, the City of London beyond — 12 Austin Friars, in the City of London, since 2009

Milestones

Fifteen years, in no hurry.

2009

A firm, and a single idea

Eleanor Vance leaves a large institution after fourteen years of allocating capital. She opens Northwind on one stubborn idea. A small amount of money, invested patiently in a few exceptional businesses, beats a large amount invested anxiously in many. The first three holdings are bought before the office has chairs.
2011

An operator joins the firm

Marcus Idowu becomes a partner. He had run a family manufacturing group before he crossed to the investing side of the table, and he sets a habit that still holds. Diligence happens on factory floors, not only in spreadsheets.
2013

A research desk, one page at a time

Sofia Reinholt joins to run research, after twelve years covering industrials and consumer staples. She brings the rule the firm still uses today. If a thesis will not fit clearly on one page, it is not understood well enough to own.
2016

Partners across three continents

James Okonkwo joins to look after the firm's limited partners. The investor base now reaches well beyond London. From this point the quarterly letter becomes the main way Northwind stays in touch with the people who back it.
2020

Tested, and held

Through the spring drawdown the firm adds a little to what it already owns, sells nothing in a panic, and writes to partners more often than usual. 96% of partner capital stays put. That number, more than any other, is why permanent capital is not just a phrase here.
2024

Fifteen years, one strategy

Northwind passes £420m under management, run the same way it was on day one. Eleven businesses. An average holding period north of eight years. No style drift. The plan has not changed, on purpose.

The partners

The people who stayed.

Four partners, one strategy. Their average tenure now rivals the firm's own holding period.

Eleanor Vance

Managing Partner · Partner since 2009

CFA · 28 years in markets

Founded Northwind in 2009, after fourteen years allocating capital inside a large institution. She thinks the best returns come from doing very little, very patiently. She writes most of the firm's letters to partners.
Marcus Idowu

Partner, Investments · Partner since 2011

Former operator · 17 years

Leads the diligence on operating businesses. He ran a family manufacturing group before he started taking them apart for a living, so he spends more time on factory floors than in front of a screen.
Sofia Reinholt

Partner, Research · Partner since 2013

CFA · 14 years in research

Runs the research desk. Twelve years covering industrials and consumer staples before Northwind. Her rule is simple. If a thesis won't fit clearly on one page, she doesn't trust it.
James Okonkwo

Head of Investor Relations · Partner since 2016

16 years in client service

Looks after the firm's limited partners. He turns a deliberately quiet strategy into plain, unhurried updates, and keeps the noise off the rest of the team so they can think.