Fund overview
The Royal London UK Smaller Companies Fund is a concentrated portfolio of expanding UK originated businesses with a well diversified range of profit drivers. The fund is benchmarked against the FTSE Small Cap (ex Investment Trust) Index, but has the flexibility to invest in Mid Cap or AIM stocks as market conditions change.
Manager
Victoria Stewart began her investment career in 1994 as a Fund Manager of private client and trust portfolios at Cantrade Investment Management. In 1998 Victoria joined United Friendly Asset Management as a UK Equity Fund Manager, becoming part of the Royal London team when the company was taken over by the Group in 1999. Victoria holds a degree in Economics from University College Swansea (University of Wales).
Investment approach
The manager aims to invest in businesses that have the potential to be tomorrow’s FTSE 100 companies. The fund employs a core long term strategy for 80% of the portfolio with the remaining 20% being used in a tactical way to exploit market anomalies. These could include corporate activity, positive earnings surprises or a change in the macroeconomic environment.
Victoria has managed a variety of UK equity funds and has established her specialism as a small cap manager. Within the small cap arena, more so than higher up the market cap spectrum, there is no substitute for legwork when researching stocks. She has a clearly defined process of analysing the operating dynamics of a business, assessing their model and identifying a clear path for funding expansion in order to establish a medium term investment horizon.
The fund has a high proportion of "effective stocks" with each holding adding something different to the portfolio. There is therefore very little duplication of ideas within the fund which is supported by Victoria's belief that every investment counts in the pursuit of diversified sources of alpha.