Investment trust insider on Odyssean – James Carthew: Falling Odyssean and maximum despair on UK small caps
UK smaller companies investment trusts have been some of the worst performers in the sector over six months, led by the popular Odyssean.
Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff policy has caused chaos in markets. However, it is surprising that some of the worst performing investment companies over the past six months are those focused on UK smaller companies. Hardest hit has been Odyssean Investment Trust (OIT), whose share price is off by almost 27% and NAV is down 24.0%. It is one of six UK small-cap trusts that lost more than 20% of their value over the six months to Thursday’s close.
OIT is a popular £168m trust that over the past four years has tended to trade at a small premium to NAV, but it currently trades at a small discount. OIT provides investors with a 100% exit opportunity every seven years. The next of these is due in 2031. Readers will know that I am in favour of this idea, which gives investors the chance to think longer term and assess performance over a market cycle
OIT is run by Stuart Widdowson – who used to run Strategic Equity Capital (SEC) – and Ed Wielechowski, who used to work for HgCapital. The bias within the portfolio is to four sectors where they have built up some expertise over the years: TMT (tech, media and telecoms), services, healthcare, and industrials… read more here