Hat-trick of wins for Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust Plc

Leading fund manager, Standard Life Investments today announced that the Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust Plc has, for the third consecutive year, won the ‘UK Smaller Companies' category at Moneywise Investment Trust Awards 2009.

The announcement also represents the third award presented to manager of the trust, Harry Nimmo and his team, this month.

Selected by a panel of industry experts, the Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust Plc was drawn from a shortlist of five competing trusts and was measured on the management skill and investment expertise of its manager Harry Nimmo, performance, investment strategy, resources, prospects and pricing.

Gordon Humphries, Head of Investment Trusts at Standard Life Investments, said; "Harry Nimmo and his team can take full credit for the consistently high performance of this trust which, since Standard Life Investments was appointed as its manager in September 2003, has been one of the top ranking UK smaller company investment trusts and has significantly outperformed its smaller company benchmark by 14%, 30% and 75% over one, three and five years respectively. Given the volatility that the markets have experienced over the last couple of years, it's important that investors are aware of funds that generate solid performance year on year and Harry is certainly fulfilling that role."

This is the latest in a long line of awards recognising the strength and performance of Standard Life Investments' Smaller Companies team, two of which were also announced this month; ‘Best Performing Smaller Companies Fund at the PLC Awards 2008' and the top spot at ‘Citywire's Top One Hundred Fund Manager of the Year 2009'.

The merger between Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust plc and Gartmore Smaller Companies Trust was successfully completed in February 2009 - almost doubling the gross assets of the trust to approximately £63m. The merger will be beneficial to both sets of shareholders who will be able to take advantage of an enlarged trust with a greater asset base and reduced basic management fee over the long term.