Institutionalising a Data Science-Enabled Investment Process for Brickwood

How Brickwood Asset Management, a UK-based start-up fund manager, built a scalable, data‑driven investment process with Northern Trust and Equity Data Science.

Client Background

Brickwood Asset Management (Brickwood) is an independent UK-based, dedicated value equities investment boutique founded in January 2024. Headquartered in London, the firm manages institutional capital through disciplined, research‑driven global and UK equity strategies.

Brickwood’s mission is to deliver superior long‑term investment performance through a well‑established, repeatable investment approach, while maintaining the highest standards of client service and governance. From inception, the firm set out to build an institutional‑grade operating model capable of supporting scale, transparency, and rigorous decision‑making.

The Opportunity

As a newly established boutique with ambitious growth plans, Brickwood sought to digitise and institutionalise its investment process from the outset. The firm wanted to move beyond spreadsheet‑based workflows toward a unified data and analytics platform that could support modern research techniques, deeper insight, and stronger governance.

Key objectives included:

Consolidating fragmented internal and third‑party data into a single platform
Improving integration across research, risk, ESG and portfolio construction workflows
Reducing manual processes and operational friction through automation
Establishing a scalable, enterprise‑grade data foundation to support data-driven investment decision-making

At the same time, Brickwood faced growing industry pressures around data complexity, regulatory expectations, and the need to demonstrate transparency, auditability, and disciplined investment decision‑making.

The Solution

Northern Trust, in partnership with Equity Data Science (EDS), worked closely with Brickwood to deliver a cloud‑based investment process management and analytics platform designed to unify and enhance the firm’s investment process.

The solution provides Brickwood with an integrated environment spanning research management, portfolio construction, risk and ESG analytics, underpinned by integrated data ingestion, quant services and deep analytical capabilities. Data from multiple external providers — alongside proprietary internal data — is consolidated into a single, governed platform, enabling consistent views, advanced analytics, sophisticated automated workflows, and configurable workflows across the investment lifecycle.

A highly collaborative implementation approach saw Northern Trust and EDS working closely with Brickwood’s team to embed the platform into their existing models and processes, ensuring the technology reflected the firm’s investment philosophy rather than imposing a generic framework. Ongoing data science support allows the platform to continue evolving alongside Brickwood’s strategy and research needs.

The Results

Brickwood now leverages a unified, institutional‑grade analytical engine to support more consistent and timely investment decision‑making.

The EDS platform provides Brickwood with a clear understanding of the drivers of portfolio outcomes — including the alignment between conviction and position sizing, the accuracy of internal forecasts, and how investment views evolve over time — enabling the firm to continuously refine its investment process with greater confidence and discipline.

The firm can now:

Aggregate and analyse internal and external data from multiple providers in one place
Track conviction, forecasts, price targets, notes and key events over time
Apply weighted scoring frameworks consistently across the investment universe
Build dashboards that bring portfolio, research and market data together
Automate research capture and reporting while strengthening governance and audit readiness

By reducing manual processes and breaking down data silos, the platform helps reduce operational friction and allows the investment team to spend more time on analysis and insight rather than data management.

Together, these capabilities provide Brickwood with a scalable, enterprise‑grade foundation that raises process efficiency, supports institutional governance standards, and positions the firm for sustainable growth as assets and complexity increase.

Client Feedback

“From the outset, we wanted to build an investment process that was disciplined, scalable and fit for institutional growth. Northern Trust, in partnership with EDS, enabled us to bring our research, analytics and workflows together in a way that supports how we actually invest, while reducing operational friction and strengthening governance.”

Claudia Ripley, Chief Executive Officer, Brickwood Asset Management

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