Harry Nimmo was the top-performing manager in the UK-focused fund sector in 2006, returning 43.5% through the Standard Life UK Smaller Companies fund. His goal of finding “tomorrow’s large-caps” has served him well. The £235m fund has beaten its benchmark with a 117.8% return over the past three years, against the 76.6% sector average.
Nimmo’s thorough approach to due diligence means that he has managed to avoid investing in problem companies, such as software group iSoft, he tells Citywire’s Dylan Lobo. “The team and I believe in having a watchful approach, which has resulted in barely any of our stocks in the portfolio suffering profit warnings.” One small-cap he likes is Axon, an IT consultancy specialising in SAP application software installation. “Axon was one of the hot stocks of the technology [boom] and saw its shares plummet from a high of 2,287p to just 41p in three years,” Nimmo tells ThisIsMoney.co.uk. But unlike some of its peers, Axon hasn’t fallen off the map and has a strong management team.
Other picks include Nimmo’s top holding Datamonitor, which provides online data and forecasting software. He likes its strong global brand and the fact that it can sell its products online to a wide customer base. Aveva, which develops engineering design software for use in building power plants, is another favourite. The group made the biggest contribution to his performance in the last year, Nimmo tells The Herald, rising more than 54% in the last quarter alone.
Contact: 0131-245 2676
Standard Life UK Smaller Companies top ten holdings
Name of holding % of assets
Datamonitor 3.9%
Aveva Group 3.4%
Intermediate Capital 2.9%
Chloride Group 2.7%
Big Yellow Group 2.6%
Domino’s Pizza 2.5%
Restaurant Group 2.4%
Raymarine 2.3%
Kier Group 2.3%
Paypoint 2.2%