Henderson Smaller Companies (ticker: HSL) was launched in 1887. It has been a small-cap trust since 1982, but only entirely focused on UK small-caps since 1999. After a difficult period for HSL, Neil Hermon was appointed lead manager in November 2002, and he refocused its portfolio using a growth at a reasonable price (GARP) investing style. He went on to outperform his benchmark in 16 out of 22 years, with an annualised NAV return of 12.1% and an excess return of 1.7 percentage points per year, assisted by an average gearing level of some 10%. Hermon retired last month, and Indriatti van Hien...
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Stuart's profile of BH Macro duly appeared this week and his next subject will be will be looking at 3i, the large but idiosyncratic private equity group, whose investment in the European retail chain Action has been one of the more remarkable successes of recent years. In this week's notes I continue to look at what other investors I follow are saying and doing, while I ponder where we go from here and how best to navigate the coming months.
Something different today? As you may know I do some occasional podcasts and interviews for Master Investor and spoke at their big annual investor ev...
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UPDATE: A revised version of this profile was published in October 2025.
Although it suffered badly in the dot com bust, Henderson Smaller Companies has been a highly consistent performer since Neil Hermon was appointed lead manager in November 2002. Hermon has beaten his UK small-cap benchmark in 16 out of 18 financial years to date using a blend of quality and growth at a reasonable price. With assets of just over £1bn, this trust holds a widely diversified portfolio of over 100 companies with only a handful of positions greater than 2% and a fairly low portfolio turnover. It is a member of...
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