ScotGems (SGEM) has commenced dealing on the London Stock Exchange today, having raised £50.3m via an initial placing and offer for subscription. A new global smaller companies investment trust, managed by Ashish Swarup and Tom Allen at Stewart Investors, SGEM will seek capital growth from a concentrated portfolio of 20-30 stocks with market capitalisations below $2.5bn, initially at least with a bias towards Asia-Pacific and emerging markets.
Stewart Investors focuses on stewardship and seeks to invest in small-cap companies with strong franchises and balance sheets. The investment manager is known for closely managing capacity in its investment strategies, with many of its popular funds closed to new investment.
A placing programme will allow SGEM to issue up to a further 49.7m shares at a premium to NAV, giving maximum total assets of c £100m at the IPO price.
Investment strategy
Stewart Investors’ bottom-up investment approach focuses on finding quality companies with potential for sustainable and predictable long-term growth. This approach seeks out alignment of interests between company management and minority shareholders, and there is a focus on finding management teams and owners that are good long-term custodians of their companies.
By combining an absolute return mindset and a strong valuation discipline, Stewart Investors’ funds have historically tended to outperform indices, particularly in falling markets
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