Herald Investment Trust (HRI) was launched in 1994, and Katie Potts has been the trust's lead manager since its IPO. It holds a globally diversified portfolio of around 300 small-cap technology stocks; roughly a third of its portfolio is based in the UK (down from around two-thirds historically), another third is in North America, with the remainder in EMEA, Asia Pacific, and fixed-income securities. HRI tends to be a long-term holder and supports many companies via fundraising as they seek to grow their businesses. Its NAV returns since inception to July 2025 have been 11.4% per year for HRI,...
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Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) was launched in 1998 as a reconstruction vehicle for a previous fund that dated back to 1896. Baillie Gifford was appointed as manager in 2003, first running EWI under its Long Term Global Growth strategy before switching to global small-caps in early 2014 when Douglas Brodie took over as its lead manager. Unlisted investments have become an increasingly large proportion of EWI's portfolio in recent years and account for just over a quarter of its assets, mostly due to major positions in SpaceX and PsiQuantum. EWI's share price doubled from 2016 to 2019 and then doubl...
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Smithson (SSON) was launched in 2018 raising a mammoth £823m at 1,000p per share. Managed by Simon Barnard and Will Morgan of Fundsmith, it follows a similar style to Fundsmith Equity in holding a concentrated portfolio of quality stocks but focuses on global small-cap stocks that are typically valued up to £15bn. Its shares had doubled by the end of 2021 and the share count ballooned from 82m to 177m with the shares nearly always trading at a premium to NAV. But performance was weak in the difficult markets of 2022 and a double-digit discount has persisted for over two years. Smithson began b...
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Global Smaller Companies Trust (ticker: GSCT) was launched in 1889. Formerly managed by F&C and then BMO, it is now part of the stable of trusts run by Columbia Threadneedle. Peter Ewins has been its lead manager since 2005. GSCT has a highly diversified portfolio with nearly 200 direct holdings in UK, North American, and European smaller companies plus several funds for exposure to Japan and the Rest of the World. The portfolio is somewhat tilted towards the UK, although less so than it has been in previous years, and the trust uses a blended benchmark that is 20% UK and 80% global ex-UK....
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North Atlantic Smaller Companies (ticker: NAS), often shortened to NASCIT, has been run by Chris Mills since 1982. Mills turns 70 later this year and he also controls about 30% of the trust's shares. Although the trust sits in the Global Smaller Companies sector, the vast majority of its holdings are listed in the UK with most of the remainder in UK/US unquoted companies. NASCIT runs a concentrated portfolio, often buying large stakes of 10% or more in its investments with Mills sometimes taking a seat on the company's board as well. NASCIT's largest holding is Oryx International Growth, a UK ...
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Herald Investment Trust specialises in small-cap stocks involved in technology, media, and telecoms. Roughly half its portfolio is listed in the UK with a quarter in North America and the remainder in Europe and Asia. It was launched in early 1994, pre-dating both Allianz Technology and Polar Capital Technology by a couple of years, and has been managed throughout by Katie Potts. Its annualised net asset value return has been just over 12%, largely keeping pace with the Polar and Allianz trusts until five years ago when US large-cap technology shares began to power ahead. It has a very large p...
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Our latest Q and A for premium subscribers is with Simon Barnard, co-founder and lead manager of the Smithson investment trust, which has been in the Investment Trusts Handbook model investment trust portfolio since the trust launched in October 2018 and has performed very strongly since then. Here is a link to the last Q and A we did with Simon in December 2020. You can also read Stuart Watson's profile from March last year by following this link.
When we spoke just over a year ago, Smithson was coming off its second successive year of strong growth, having more than doubled in size to a £2 ...
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Stuart qualified as a chartered accountant before moving into journalism and has 20 years of experience of owning and writing about investment trusts from an independent standpoint. He is now producing regular fund profiles for the Money Makers circle. This post originally appeared on his blog but it has been added to our archive to build up our library of content.
One of the questions that often gets asked about Smithson, Fundsmith's global smaller company investment trust, is whether it is in danger of growing too large. It's a question that's been bugging me for a while but after digging i...
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For premium subscribers we periodically do podcast interviews with fund managers and analysts about current market conditions and funds (occasionally shares) that we invest in. This one is with Simon Barnard, co-founder and co-manager of the Smithson investment trust which has been in the Money Makers model investment trust portfolio since its launch in 2018 and has performed strongly since then. The transcript is a lightly edited version of the original 40-minute podcast recording.
Welcome Simon. How has the two year experience that you’ve had as a listed investment trust, in terms of the ...
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