UPDATE (Oct 2026): In September 2026, RIII's board noted upcoming changes to Jupiter's investment team would mean that Matt Cable and Tim Service, its two managers, would depart in early 2027. The trust plans to review its management arrangements as a result of this development. In 2024, RIII returned +8.8% on a capital-only basis versus +5.5% for its benchmark, followed by +2.4% versus +19.8% in 2025, and +4.1% versus +5.3% in the first half of 2026.
Rights and Issues Investment Trust (ticker: RIII) was founded in 1962. It was managed for nearly four decades by Simon Knott before he retired ...
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UPDATE: On 18 September 2026, JUGI said it planned to combine with Aberdeen UK Smaller Companies Growth (AUSC), which had a market cap of around £215m at the time. The deal is expected to complete around the end of 2026, with AUSC shareholders being offered a cash exit at a 2% discount for up to 35% of its shares. JUGI plans to cut the management fee on the first £200m of its net assets from 0.65% to 0.6% upon completion. JUGI's NAV returns were 28.4% for the year ended July 2024 and 0.6% for 2025, versus benchmark returns of 13.2% and 2.5%. For the six months to January 2026, it returned 5.3%...
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UPDATE: A revised version of this profile was published in June 2026, after the trust changed its management firm and its name to Artemis UK Future Leaders (AFL).
Invesco Perpetual UK Smaller Companies (ticker: IPU) was launched in 1988 and has been run by Invesco since 1994. Jonathan Brown has managed the portfolio since 2010, initially working for a few years as a co-manager alongside Richard Smith. This trust holds around 70-80 stocks with a growth bias and currently uses a barbell approach to provide a balance of cyclical and more economically defensive positions. In 2015, IPU switched to...
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UPDATE: SEC launched a 100% tender offer in October 2025, which saw a 22% take-up. NAV returns were +9% versus 0% for its benchmark in the year to June 2023, +17% versus +19% to June 2024, 0% versus +13% to June 2025 and -2% versus +8% to June 2026. The board has said that 50% of net gains from any realised profitable transactions will be allocated to share buybacks at discounts of up to 5% to NAV per share, and it intends to provide a further realisation opportunity in 2030.
Strategic Equity Capital (ticker: SEC) was launched in 2005 and sits in the UK Smaller Companies sector. It runs a con...
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UPDATE: This trust was merged into BlackRock Smaller Companies (BRSC) in early 2026.
BlackRock Throgmorton (ticker: THRG) is one of two trusts run by BlackRock that sit in the UK Smaller Companies sector. It has been managed by Dan Whitestone since early 2018 and before that was run by highly regarded Mike Prentis for nearly a decade. Although it shares many holdings with BlackRock Smaller Companies, it invests a little further up the market-cap scale and takes a different approach to gearing by investing up to 30% of its net assets in a portfolio of contracts for difference (CFDs) using a mi...
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Our latest Q and A for premium subscribers is with Stuart Widdowson, the manager of the Odyssean investment trust (ticker: OIT), a company that I have followed for several years and was recently introduced to the Money Makers portfolios. In this Q and A, we discuss how the trust seeks to exploit the undervaluation of smaller company stocks. Odyssean IPOed in May 2018 and has a market capitalisation of £150 million. Stuart Widdowson earlier spent seven years as the manager of Strategic Equity Capital.
I would like to start by asking you to remind us what is distinctive about your approach. I ...
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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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UPDATE: ASCoT has been one of the better-performing UK small-cap trusts of the last five years in what has been a difficult market for most managers in this sector. It returned 33% in 2021, -10% in 2022, 8% in 2023, 12% in 2024, and 8% in 2025. From January to mid-September 2026, it is up 14%.
Aberforth Smaller Companies Trust, often shortened to ASCoT, is the largest trust in the UK Smaller Companies sector with nearly £1.6bn in assets. Launched in 1990, it makes up the majority of funds managed by the UK small-cap specialist, Aberforth Partners. It's run by a team of six individuals, five o...
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Jonathan Davis As noted last week, our content is now being published as it is produced, with a single summary email on Saturday afternoon and a second catch up and reminder on Mondays. After Simon Barnard, the manager of Smithson, this week, I have a number of interesting Q and As coming up over the next few weeks, so please stay tuned.
On my radar I have mentioned Odyssean Investment Trust (ticker: OIT) several times as a trust I like. I shall be doing a catch up Q and A for subscribers with Stuart Widdowson, the manager, next month, but at the moment I have been digging a bit further into ...
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Our latest Q and A for premium subscribers is with Georgina Brittain, the manager of two J.P.Morgan investment trusts, one dedicated to UK smaller companies, the other to UK midcap stocks. She is one of the longest serving and most prominent female fund managers in the sector. While the number of women directors on trust boards has notably increased in recent years, it remains anomalous that there are still very few women in senior fund management positions, something that is set to change slowly as time goes by.
The Q and A recording is here.
In it Georgina goes over the now familiar argume...
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