Paul Britton was the closing speaker slot at the 2026 Sohn Montreal Investment Conference, and he used it to push back on the room’s mood. Britton is the founder and chief executive of Capstone, a volatility-focused firm that the introduction pegged at about 13 billion dollars in assets, 220 people, and 10 offices around the world. He was made an officer of the OBE British Empire (Order of the British Empire (OBE)) for his financial support of the arts, a detail the host worked into a long and affectionate introduction. Then Britton, who has traded options since his days on the London floor and co-founded the business in 1999, got up and talked about artificial intelligence.
His message was not that the technology is overrated. He thinks it may be one of the great evolutions of his generation. His point was that AI will be bumpy and for a conference full of long-only optimism, more uncomfortable. Britton sees a first phase of capex euphoria giving way to a messier second phase, and he laid out a single trade built to profit from the turbulence in between.
As founder and chief executive, Britton has steered the business through 2008 and the 2020 shock since co-founding it in 1999. He started out on the London trading floor at LIFFE before building one of the deeper franchises in derivatives.
A first phase built on euphoria and capex
Britton framed the moment as the opening act of something genuinely historic. “We feel as though we are in this incredible, historical generational evolution, which I completely agree with,” he said. The first phase, the one we are living through, is defined by spending and belief. Hyperscalers are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the build-out, and Britton described an arms race in which the largest players are, in his view, overspending to lock in position.
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