Investing in small UK companies

[MyPinkTraybake]

I'm thinking of investing in some small British companies, does anyone do this? Would I start with looking at companies listed on the AIM? Would picking a fund like Blackrock Smaller Companies Trust be better? What else do I read?

My JPM Uk small companies funds has performed very poorly - so I’ll watch with interest to see how others have performed.

Why are you focusing on small British companies. Are you trying to balance a portfolio in someway?

No it was on the back of the Mansion House Accord. Maybe medium companies are the way to go.

its a good thing to do morally, I felt good about it at the time but whilst the Jupiter fund was my lowest performing choice, the second lowest performing was also uk small companies. I made those investments 3 years ago and they are just about to break even - that’s the beauty of diversification - I feel quite relieved I didn’t put a large amount into uk small business and I won’t be adding to those funds in the future - but then past performance is no indication of future. You just have to make your choices and live with the consequences

Reeves is talking about unlisted businesses. She needs funding for the likes of HS2 to have the final connection to London. These types of investments are not liquid so you need to be sure not to need your money for a very long time or like forever.

There is a very high risk Joe Public will just provide an exit strategy for private equity to dump their investments on them at massively inflated valuations. What could possibly go wrong?

This was the conclusion I came to as the deal has been made with private equity firms.

I think you're right! By the time Joe Public hears about anything the real value has been taken out. It is not a good idea to have people investing in these companies if it is not surplus money to needs.

I’d think hard before investing in private equity. Not convinced the returns justify the downsides.

Probably stating the obvious but why not Scottish Mortgage? Good mix of larger/smaller and public/private and decent global mix, very liquid.

@JamDisaster I have Scottish Mortgage and sometimes it’s been a bit of a wild ride. It isn’t for the faint hearted- it can be a bit turbulent. I’ve done ok with it now, but feel I might sell out now. Maybe it was the time period I’ve invested over, but I’ve certainly looked at my SMT with wide eyes on occasions 🤣

@MyPinkTraybake - ah, ok, I did invest in UK special situations for some years, but eventually moved to a Global index as I realised I could get better returns and had no need to balance a portfolio so a generic mix of countries and companies was good for me.