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Standard Life Investments European Smaller Companies has many positive facets.
After several years in sales, Ken Nicholson joined Standard Life Investments in 1999 and in 2001 he migrated to the buy side when he moved to the Smaller Companies team to manage institutional UK mandates before developing and launching the European small-cap product in 2007. Harry Nimmo, who heads up the team, has built an impressive track record running the Standard Life Investments UK Smaller Companies OEIC since its launch in 1997. As they have worked closely together since 2001, they share similar philosophies and processes. We hold Nimmo in high regard and value their joint collaboration.
The investment process emphasises company fundamental analysis: Through the use of proprietary screens and extensive company contacts, the manager seeks to exploit nonconsensus opportunities. These include situations where he believes the market has underestimated a stock's earnings potential and where there is a clear catalyst to realise this value. That said, Nicholson’s awareness of market sentiment and his appreciation of current macroeconomic trends complements his stock-selection process.
We see this as an advantage, and since the fund’s inception in 2007, performance has been excellent. The fund has performed well versus its Morningstar Europe Small-Cap Equity category peers, both in rising and falling markets for the most part. When global financial markets plummeted in 2008, the fund fell almost 41% but the manager protected investors’ capital better than most peers, as the average fund in the category declined 50% during the period. In the 2009 rally, the fund still outperformed its category peers by more than 12 percentage points, delivering an annualized return of 60%. Positive stock selection coupled with the manager’s swift response to the changing market environment has aided performance in most market conditions since the credit crisis began.
Overall, we see this fund as an attractive holding and the fund retains a Bronze rating.
