Edinburgh Worldwide – “The opportunity is as exciting as ever”

As the rate of inflation continues its descent (barring a small bounce in the UK in December 2023) interest rates look likely to fall. Growth stocks have been recovering and Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI), the most growth-focused of the global smaller companies trusts (see pages 22 and 23) has seen a pickup in its relative performance. Its managers comment that, within the portfolio, valuations are relatively low, and history suggests that we could be at the beginning of what may turn out to be a si

Edinburgh Worldwide – The output of innovation is alive and well

As interest rates have risen in response to rising inflation, Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) – with its focus on small cap global growth stocks – has given up a significant portion of its previous outperformance. The trust finds itself in a somewhat unusual position in that it has moved to a significant discount, about a 20% discount versus a five-year average of 2.5%. This comes at a time when global small cap stocks are trading at a modest discount to global equities, rather than their usual signif

Edinburgh Worldwide – The output of innovation is alive and well

At a time when interest rates have risen in response to rising inflation, Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) – with its focus on small cap global growth stocks – has given up a significant portion of its previous outperformance. The trust finds itself in a somewhat unusual position in that it has moved to a significant discount, about a 20% discount versus a five-year average of 2.5%. This comes at a time when global small cap stocks are trading at a modest discount to global equities, rather than their

Tomorrow’s winners

Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) invests in some of the world’s most exciting companies, many of which would otherwise be hard for investors to access. It seeks to identify tomorrow’s winners when they are still relatively small, and hang onto them as they become successful. The manager acknowledges that not every company will make it, but expects that the profits accruing to EWI from those that succeed more than make up for those that fall by the wayside. After a phenomenal 2020, sentiment switched ag

Tomorrow’s winners

Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) invests in some of the world’s most exciting companies, many of which would otherwise be hard for investors to access. It seeks to identify tomorrow’s winners when they are still relatively small, and hang onto them as they become successful. The manager acknowledges that not every company will make it, but expects that the profits accruing to EWI from those that succeed more than make up for those that fall by the wayside. After a phenomenal 2020, sentiment switched ag

Spring Conference ‘21

Starting on Tuesday we heard from managers running investment trusts across all of the world’s major equity regions and found a bullish but cautious outlook was prevalent as the tide begins to turn on COVID-19.

Mind the gap

Recent years have seen companies opt to remain private for longer; due to their ability to access capital from alternative areas and to remain free of the increasingly burdensome requirements of being listed. The implosion of the Woodford Equity Income Fund as a result of liquidity problems has shone a negative light on open-ended funds holding stakes in private companies. However, the capacity to hold illiquid assets is one of the key characteristics of the investment trust structure. In this a

Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust - Overview

Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust (EWIT) has a global growth mandate, and is managed by the Global Discovery team at Baillie Gifford. The trust sits in the AIC Global Smaller Companies sector, with Douglas Brodie at the helm of the portfolio. Douglas looks to identify companies which are small relative to their potential size, rather than small in terms of their capacity for growth. The managers do not seek to replicate the benchmark index, and the trust has an active share of 99%. As such,

Measure for measure

In recent years active management has been under almost constant attack from the rise of passive funds. Yet threats often give rise to opportunities: we believe that complacency is always the real enemy, and so competition from passive funds can be seen as a positive development in the industry. Active managers have been forced to up their game, and as we discuss below, our research shows that the UK closedended universe has become significantly more active in response to the challenge of cheap

LIBERUM: Plus500: Strategic progress pays dividends

Tatton Asset Management (TAM LN) - Record net inflows

Tatton, the leading on-platform discretionary fund manager (DFM) and IFA support services Group has released a trading update ahead of its results to 31 March 2024, due on 18 June 2024.

Hardman & Co Insight: 2023 was an annus horribilis for Quoted UK Infrastructure and Renewable Energy

The focus of Hardman & Co Research is on the nine quoted Infrastructure Investment Companies (IICs) and on the 22 Renewable Energy Infrastructure Funds (REIFs): the stocks analysed are all members of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC). We are updating our publication of January 2023, assessing both the lacklustre share price performances during 2023 and the key issues, including interest rates, inflation and power prices. As a 31-strong group, its combined market capitalisation is no

Ondo InsurTech FY24 Trading Update

Ondo InsurTech has released a brief post-YE update revealing its good progress continued through 2H24 and consequently FY24 will be in line with market expectations.

BlackRock World Mining

BRWM’s managers: we see all the classic signs of high commodity prices...

NextEnergy Solar Fund - Attractive Refinancing

The refinancing of a £135m revolving credit facility and the extension of a similar £70m facility gives NESF firepower as development opportunities for new solar are especially attractive thanks to lower module prices in Europe. They give the fund key financial flexibility at a critical time as it pursues its capital recycling programme.

Resilient FY24, confident long-term outlook

Vp’s full year update highlights sector-leading results, once again benefiting from the diversity of its end markets and the quality of its specialist businesses. With results expected to be broadly in line with expectations, we trim our FY24 PBT forecast by c.5% to £39.0m, a shade below the FY23 outturn (£40.2m). We consider this an impressively resilient performance set against a mixed market backdrop. Under new leadership, a strategic refresh is underway and management is confident in long

Jupiter Green

JGC’s fundamental story continues to show resilience, but the discount remains wide…

Lowland Investment Company - Is the tide turning?

Lowland Investment Company’s (LWI’s) unconstrained, multi-cap investment policy differentiates it from most peers in the AIC UK Equity Income sector. It offers investors broad market exposure, outside of the large, traditional ‘income stocks’ at a 13% discount to NAV. The underperformance of small- and mid-cap companies versus larger peers has slowed and a turnaround would be very positive for LWI. Portfolio returns are already benefiting from acquisition activity, spurred by low valuations, and

The Hardman & Co Monthly: April 2024

Feature article: Steady as she goes, but could be better: A review of investment company liquidity since 2016 Liquidity is the lifeblood of equity markets. The measurement of liquid asset availability to a market or company is a way of gauging a market’s health. This article builds on our previous work, which analysed the liquidity data for non-financial trading companies, by applying the same analytical techniques to the investment companies (IC) space. We analyse liquidity for ICs as a whol

AUM up 30% in FY24, record flows, forecasts raised

AUM jumped £3.8bn or +30% in FY24, reaching £16.6bn on 31 Mar 24, 12% above our previous forecast of £14.7bn. Including 50%-owned 8AM Global, Assets Under Influence hit £17.6bn. Investment performance provided a tailwind, adding £1.5bn to AUM. But our key takeaway from Tatton’s hugely impressive last few years, is that it has designed and implemented a superior offering in platform-MPS with net flows consistently far higher than peers. That leadership looks even more pronounced in H2-24 with net

abrdn Private Equity Opportunities – On the way to greener pastures?

Despite navigating through what its managers considered to be challenging conditions in 2023, abrdn Private Equity Opportunities (APEO) was able to report both positive NAV growth and double-digit share price returns in its recently published annual results. APEO’s discount has narrowed by more than 10% in recent months, so that it is trading on a 28.9% discount currently, narrowing from about 45% last October. These figures were generated over a period that saw a slowdown in activity in Europea

NextEnergy Solar Fund – High- and growing-income opportunity?

NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) is almost 10 years old. Since launch, it has built a £1.2bn, 933MW portfolio of 100 operating solar assets, powering the equivalent of over 330,000 homes, declared dividends totalling £333m, and avoided the emission of about 2.2 Mt CO2e. NESF is on track to pay 8.35p in dividends, with forecast dividend cover of about 1.3x. Share price weakness that has afflicted the whole sector means that dividend translates to a yield of 11.1%, one of the highest in its sector, a

Agronomics - A unique offering in a rapidly developing sector

Agronomics (ANIC) invests in cellular agriculture companies. Since mid-2022 it has placed increasing emphasis on companies using precision fermentation technology or providing contract precision fermentation services, as these appear to have greater near-term commercial potential than cultivated meat and seafood. Agronomics’ NAV has risen almost 100% since the inception of the current strategy in April 2019, and looks set to increase further as the company’s portfolio holdings receive regulatory

Strong H1'23 results; forecasts upgraded