The Very First Investment Trust Rating Upgrade

Morningstar has just announced its very first investment trust upgrade for Harry Nimmo's Standard Life UK Smaller Companies trust

Szymon Idzikowski 1 October, 2012 | 12:00PM
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Securities Mentioned in this Video:
Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust (SLS)

(To view the trust’s performance, click on the ticker. To view Morningstar’s latest research report, click on the trust’s name.)

Video Transcript:

Jon Standring: Morningstar analysts rate well over 1,000 funds. Today I'm joined by Szymon Idzikowski, a closed-end fund analyst, to discuss one particular fund.

Welcome Szymon.

Szymon Idzikowski: Welcome Jon.

Standring: So, you've just upgraded the Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Investment Trust. It was previously a Silver rating and it’s now Gold. First of all, what was it that we liked about it originally when it was Silver?

Idzikowski: Yeah, we think very highly of its manager, Harry Nimmo. Actually in addition to this fund, he also runs a Gold-rated open-end mirror fund and actually this year he was one of the two winners of the Morningstar OBSR Outstanding Investor Honours.

So, Harry has been actually investing in smaller companies for nearly 20 years. He built a very strong team over that time and a very disciplined process. He is actually part of a team of three small-cap specialists, but he can also leverage the much bigger UK equity team where the average tenure exceeds 12 years, and we believe that really translates into very good implementation of the process.

Standring: So what's their investment process?

Idzikowski: So, the manager looks to identify key growth drivers of companies he is looking at and he tries to understand how changes to these drivers influence his view on companies. He starts with a quantitative screening, followed by the stock analysis, and we really like the implementation and execution of this process, and it actually led to the very strong returns over different market cycles.

So, since taking over the fund in 2003, he has actually comfortably outperformed his peers. What's more, [the fund] has delivered that without taking excessive risk. So, even though Harry is using gearing here, which is adding extra volatility, the fact that he is biased to quality companies offsets that additional volatility.

Standring: Okay. So, we liked it before, it was a Silver rating; now we like it even more, it's Gold. What have they done; what have they changed?

Idzikowski: Yes, so until September 2012, one thing we didn't like about this fund was its performance fee structure. It has been calculated only over 12 months and when you look at Harry's process, he takes a much longer term view. So we thought the performance fee should also be calculated over a longer term view.

When you look at the index that has been used to calculate the performance fee, it wasn't fully representative of the fund's constituents. And then finally, there was no obligation to make good on under-performance. So, overall, the ongoing charges were just more expensive than the typical peer.

We've been criticizing this since we issued the rating. So, when we saw the board announcement that that the performance fee has been abolished, we were actually very pleased with that. Performance fee is gone now. Management fee has been slightly increased by 20 basis points; it is now 85 basis points, which is still cheaper than the average fund. Ongoing charges are very competitive. But what we also like about this change is that it added on simplicity of the whole structure. So, overall, we believe it increased the fund's appeal.

Standring: Great. Thanks, Szymon.

Idzikowski: Thank you.

Standring: For Morningstar, I am Jon Standring.

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar
Rating
abrdn UK Smaller Companies Growth Ord491.50 GBX-0.30Rating

About Author

Szymon Idzikowski

Szymon Idzikowski  is a closed-end fund analyst with Morningstar.

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