Good interims from Standard Life UK Smaller Companies

Standard Life UK Smaller Companies has published interim accounts for the six months ended 31 December 2014. It beat its benchmark over this period, returning 1.6% on net assets as compared to a -1.3% return on the Numis Smaller Companies Index (excluding Investment Companies) and the FTSE100 Index of the largest UK listed companies fell by 2.6%. The return to shareholders was -0.1% as the discount widened from 5.9% to 7.3%. the interim dividend was increased by 10% to 1.4p.

The manager’s report says the leading performers in the year were Workspace, the London orientated managed work-centre company, where rental and net asset value growth were well ahead of expectations; Ted Baker made good progress in the USA; BTG got approval in the USA for a less invasive treatment for varicose veins; Paddy Power turned in a particularly good performance from their Australian business; and Abcam, the world leader in on-line antibodies, is showing a return to growth and is increasing its dividend pay-out.

The poorest performing companies were those either partly or wholly exposed to the oil & gas sector. These included Amerisur Resources, a Colombian based producer, Gulf Marine Services, an Abu Dhabi based oil services company, Pressure Technologies an oil-field equipment company and Aveva Group, an engineering design software company. Hargreaves Lansdown was also weak following signs that the new retail distribution review driven changes on the pricing of financial products may have some impact on margins.

SLS : Good interims from Standard Life UK Smaller Companies